Treatment #2 Wednesday 2.6.2008

Day 1, Treatment #2

Dan and I left for our 10:00 appointment at 0920 due to the road conditions. Yuck. Still a mess here. We arrived about 9:40, and the girl said not to sign in, that she would pull the chart. Ok, thanks. I have to say, that before I opened the door to the office, I stopped, took a breath, and visualized all of your colors and the path that we are weaving. I had to draw another breath and make it brighter, strengthen it. I was ready to go through the door. I turned and smiled at Dan.

Time went on, and about ten after, Dan's getting restless. About 1020, I went to the window. Is there a delay? I thought my appointment was at 10:00... She looks on the computer, it's for 10:30. Oh. Ok, thanks.

So we wait some more.

Finally, at 1040, we get called back and placed in an exam room. Huh? I thought I was having a treatment today. You are, the badgeless lady says, but you see the doctor first. Oh, I say, I thought she'd see me while I was "in the Chair". Nope, she says. Doctor likes to see you first, evaluate how you did with the previous treatment, and go from there. If your blood counts are off she may give you other medications and have you come back another day for treatment. Oh, ok. It just seems to be time-efficient to see the patient after the needle/blood process has been started. Yes, it does, she says. All the while she's taking my vitals. 105/50 , 97.8 , 76 , 144.6 pounds. She takes her machine and leaves, telling us the doctor will be in shortly. Thank you nice lady.

This room is a typical exam room (I forgot to look at the artwork), paper covered exam table, 2 chairs, rolling stool. Blah, blah.

11:00 Doctor Bolmer comes in. She's smiling and upbeat today, shakes our hands, asks how I'm doing. I have written out a page of items for this visit, and I hand it to her, offering her to look it over and address them how she would like. Ok, great, she says, and takes a few minutes looking it over. She zooms in on the menstrual periods. So, you're bleeding. That means your not menopausal. (Yup) She says "hopefully this next round will knock your ovaries out and will take care of it. Then she looks at my left hand concerning the skin rash. We talk about the chemo/frequent handwashing/institutional soaps etc, and I show her the IV site and the area where the catheter ended. Hm, she says. Probably the taxotere, but we'll see what this next round does. We also talk about the tingling in my left hand. She does a check for carpal tunnel (it's not carpal tunnel....) Well, she says, chemo doesn't usually cause that... But then later in the discussion she cedes that the taxotere is pretty strong stuff, and "we'll watch what happens this time.." Ok. (I'm thinking that it IS related, and I'm all for the let's watch it plan.) She listened to my heart and lungs, she asks about work and activity; I tell her my work schedule (she groans) and that I have run 3 times in this interval. She thinks this is great. She suggests some B 6, 100 mg/day, and vitamin E 400 mg/day. Not necessary, but may help skin issues. Ok.

We're done, she has written scripts for Nystatin/Xylocaine swish and spit for my mouth in case I need it. Also for Nexium for that pesky stomach pain if that recurs. She smiles, shakes my hand again, and tells us someone will be in to move us into a treatment room. I tell her I'm surprised that you don't see us in the treatment room.... She says it works better all the way around for her to see us first, so that she can alter the treatment plan if needed. Ok, Thanks. And that she'll see us before the next treatment, too. Ok. See you then. It's 11:35.

Badgeless Lady comes in at 1205. (Dan has been getting restless. I had offered him that he could go wander around East Towne somewhere- a shopping plaza-and I could call him if I needed him. He doesn't accept the offer, but I can see he tucked it away...) She takes us to Room 11, a small room, with a brown lazy boy that has a wooden side table affixed to the left side of the chair, below the armrest. I kind of like it, it's bigger than the smaller little arm that swings around. There's only room for one chair, and there's no TV. Daniel immediately says that he's not staying in this room... I offer him again to go out, and I'll call him when I'm done. Rose must have been right outside the door; she comes in to greet us, and get started, and she apologizes for the small room, that this is only temporary until a larger room opens up. Ok, thanks, I say. I see that she has my chart.

Rose looks at my arm, we discuss IV sites, and she says why don't we warm it up, we have a couple of new heating pads. Aha!! I have brought my own heating pad today, and we get it out, plug it in, and she wraps it around my arm. I'll be back in a few minutes...Ok, thanks.

About 10 minutes later, Rose is back, and has inserted a 24 gauge in my right lower arm, just above the wrist. You know the one. She pulls off 2 tubes of blood, the short purple one and the longer pink one, and adds a 250 ml bag of 0.9 normal saline. She leaves to take the blood to be processed and takes the chart with her. Dan and I talk about lunch. He decides he could go wander around Dick's Sporting Goods, and I could call him when I am ready for food. Ok, good plan. Bye.

1240 Rose is back, and takes me over to Treatment Room 4. The 250 ml is almost infused; she takes that down and hangs a 1000 ml bag of same. This room has the green lazy boy with the small swing arm table that has the dingy bell and the remote, 2 chairs, and a TV. There is also a window over my right shoulder with no window treatments; the room is quite bright for being a snowy day. I want to turn out one of the flourescent lights, but each time I got up I forgot, and never did the rest of the afternoon. Rose gets me settled, leaves and comes back with the 50 ml bag that has Decadron 10 mg, Benadryl 25 mg, Tagamet 300 mg, and Kytril 1 mg. (I had to look up the Kytril--she told me it was like Zofran--and it is. It seems that it works very quickly for both post op nausea as well as chemotherapy related nausea.

1310 I could feel that the medicine was affecting my head, it was about half infused, so I got up to the bathroom before it got worse. (I had already visited the facilities about 3 times before) When I got back to Room 4, Badgeless Lady was checking the bio-bins as the guy was there to change them out. I asked her for the lab results from January 16, and to talk to the Billing Lady, was Helen here today? She said sure, she would take care of that for me. Thank you, BL. She took our large yellow biobin with her, then returned with a new one and my lab results. Great!
Thank you so much! I'm surprised to see that all of the shifts of the WBC's are back to normal. Hm. So does that mean my body is efficient? I'd like to have a conversation with a hematologist.

1320 Dan calls, he's at Max and Erma's, a restaurant nearby, to tell me the menu options. I tell him my request, minestrone soup and a half of a reuben sandwich. I see that the little bag has infused.

1325 Helen comes in with her beautiful smiling self. I show her the notes from Colonial, the cancer insurance plan, and she says, no problem, I'll be able to print that out shortly. Thanks, Helen.

1330 Rose comes in and adds the Taxotere 125 mg (75mg/m squared) in 250 ml normal saline. I have written in my notebook here "+400 ml NS"-- I think that means that 400 ml of the big bag has infused, or maybe that's how much went in along with this bag, I'm not sure....

1340 I get up to the bathroom again. I know, it's only been 20 minutes, but shoot, I've hydrated well the last couple of days, as well as this morning, as well as the iv fluids... When I get back to the room I smell food; Daniel has returned. Yum.

We eat, visit, look at television. The devastation of the tornadoes is amazing. Prayers and angels to all of them. Rose stops by now and then to check me and the bags. One of those times she brought in the Cytoxan 1020 mg in 250 ml (600 mg/m squared) and plugs it into a port, ready to turn on when the other is done. The Taxotere stops at 1450, the NS is still infusing. Rose has just gone into the treatment room next door. I hear her discontinuing his stuff, changing things around, and watch for her to come out as opposed to dinging the bell. When she does come out, she pauses and looks in, and sees that the bag has infused. I tell her that it had finished when she was next door, so I was watching for her to come out instead of ringing. Oh, ok she said. She came in and closed that and opened the Cytoxan, watched to see that it was dripping, mentioned that it was interesting today as there were only 2 nurses instead of 4. Whoa. Yep, know what that's like... It's now 1500 hours.

The Cytoxan runs in over an hour, along with the NS, and there's about 250 ml left in the bag. It's dripping pretty fast, so I expect that we'll be done a little before 5:00. She comes in--she knows that I've done well at home, am able to drink ok, and offers to stop the iv before it's done. We agree to that. I suggest that I go to the bathroom while it's still infusing, and get that out of the way before we leave. I do that, and after I get back to the room, she takes the iv down at 1635. There's about 150 ml left. She flushes my needle with the heparin, wraps it with the self stick wrap (it's blue today) and we are on our way. What a long day.

We go home, 30-35 mph on the highway. Still snowing, still a mess. It is absolutely beautiful outdoors--the snow is kind of wet, like good for snowmen and snowballs and snowforts, and it's sticking to the tree's barks, leaving a contrast of white and dark. Stunning. I breathe and praise the Lord for all that I have that's good in my life. And that's a lot.

Home about 5 o'clock. That feels good. I'm a bit woozy in the head, and kind of weave when I stand or walk. That's ok, I'm not going many places this evening.

It's 11:00 now. I have had a 16 ounce water, a 24 ounce water, and will have finished another 24 ounce water here real soon. I have only been to the bathroom twice since I've been home. It's so strange how that affects urine output. Dr. wasn't concerned--it was one of the things I had on my list. And it resolved last time in a couple of days. So I'll keep drinking.

Overall, I'm doing really well, I think. Just a twinge of nausea infrequently, I had a couple of oyster crackers (aren't those just the cutest things) and the water. I will have another bite of something before going to bed. And, by the way, I wore a scarf today, one of the long narrow ones tied around my head. I tied it on the side and brought the tails around again and tucked them in. It stayed pretty good, but sometime during the late afternoon it loosened up and I had to re-tie it. Learning process, huh. A scarf is definitely much more comfortable for me than either of the wigs. I was more sleepy today during the infusions. I could have napped if I had quit watching the infusion...

Again, Thank you so much for the love, kind words, hugs, COMMENTS, and offering your unique color to add to this weaving. It is truly what gets me through. Breathe, smile. Praise the Lord.