Day One, Retrospective

Thursday started with Samantha finding my suitcase open on the floor of the bedroom.  She investigated it at great length. She seemed to find it interesting that I was packed, while Lou was not.  Maybe she thought there was a Girls Spa Weekend in store for me. Lou and I tried to explain that Mommy wasn't going to a Hotel, but a Hospital, but she didn't get it.  She wanted to come along, till Lou explained that Mommy was actually going to The Kennel.  Oh, Sam remembers The Kennel all right, and she indicated that she was happy to stay home and keep Daddy company.

Mo picked us up in his new Jeep Liberty, and that brought back lots of great memories of our red Jeep Liberty, which we got the first year it came out.  (2004?)  I loved that reassuring feeling that no matter what happened, I could drive over it!

Mo dropped us off early, we hit the Starbucks, walked over to the clinic, and got squeezed in super early. My labs looked great, so we were approved to go ahead with chemo. I was actually in a hospital room by noon!  Amazing.

This time, I skipped the Admitting Office and came right up to the ward. I was admitted by Barbara, an admittance nurse here on the floor.  We had a nice chat.  Oh, and I handed over two more boxes of Girl Scout cookies for the nurses.  Girl Scout cookies are always welcome.

We had picked up lunch for Lou in the cafeteria on our way to the room, and so we ate together once my tray arrived. Then things really slowed down to a crawl. Lou and I were just waiting around.  So we watched some Star Trek Voyager Season 3 episodes on Netflix discs.

The bag of chemo did not arrive till after 4PM (the pharamacist mixed it up fresh just for me).  Then we finally started the first bag of saline, which takes two hours.  My nurse warned me that although it looked like I might be getting chemo at 6:30, that would be dangerously close to shift change, so I would probably not get it till about 8:00PM.  There is just too much going on during shift change for them to watch the chemo. I could see her point. I don't want some problem to occur when everyone is busy doing something else. Darn!  The joy of getting in the room at noon was not panning out.

Right around this point, Darlene dropped by and we had an awesome visit.  Then she and Lou left.  She drove him home.

Then a miracle occurred.  Barbara the admittance nurse offered to shepherd me through the end of my chemo while everyone else was doing shift change!  Yahoo!  This is huge, actually, because it means that I will be discharged on Saturday at 5:30PM instead of 8:00PM or 10:00PM.  I can't wait to tell Lou.  Maybe we can get a ride home on Saturday instead of staying at the hotel across the street.

Do you think maybe the Girl Scout cookies helped fuel this miracle?  I do.  The magical properties of Thin Mints are well known.

Even though not much has happened yet, I have been mildly nauseated all day.  When they access my port, even with candy in my mouth, I just get nauseated.  I am such a delicate flower.  But the good news is, now I got an Emend pill, followed by Decadron and Zophran via my IV.  No more nausea!

Chemo started at 6:40PM, and it went smoothly.  I felt fine.

I was really tired, though, and I settled down to sleep at 8:00PM.  I slept pretty well despite being woken up for various checks during the night.

At 4:00AM I was wide awake. There was really no point in trying to to keep sleeping.  But now I am talking about Day Two, so I had better stop. I will tell you that Julie, Alice, and Dan are dropping by to keep me company, which will be great. Anya had to bail because she is home sick with a cold. (If you believe in it, please send Anya good vibes to get well.)  We decided that if she dragged herself in here, she might give me her cold or actually kill some of my desperately-ill neighbors!  I am hoping that Anya is just bumped to the visitors list for the next Chemo Weekend.