I know you've all been eagerly awaiting the latest installment in my adventures. It's not very exciting, I'm sorry to say. Or adventuresome. Or perhaps I'm just feeling cranky today. I'll see if I can construct something dramatic and amusing for you...(if you're short on time, just skip to the summation at the bottom).
These sessions have gone fairly smoothly, as far as chemotherapy goes. No horrible reactions, no intense 9-hour hospital stays, no violent bodily changes. My hair is still doing weird things, I still have obnoxious heartburn 3 out of every 7 days, and my feet tingle about half the mornings I get up. I generally have to get up around 4am and fly 2,000 miles once a week, and occasionally the flights make me feel like puking.
My first treatment of the new year was rather more exciting because it also involved further biopsies (exactly like I had done before my diagnosis), and having wee metal clips put into my breast and my lymph node, so that the surgeon will be able to better see where to cut and what to remove (important, no?). The biopsies, while not terribly painful, are also not terribly fun. They lay you down and squish your parts and stab you full of lidocaine and then take tiny bites of your flesh. My doctor had a med student trailing her, so it was actually a little more disturbing than it was the first time, because she was constantly pointing at the screen (which I could see) and illustrating everything she was doing: "See this huge needle here, and we want to POKE (and she'd poke while she said that) right here into the middle of the lymph node, and you have to PUSH pretty hard to get through all that dense tissue, and you can see the lidocaine SQUIRT out into the little pocket in front of the needle..." It went on from there. They take several tiny "scoops" of tissue samples out of each area, and then x-ray them to be sure they've gotten the tissue they want. Unfortunately they missed the first time around in the breast, and had to re-scoop...so instead of six little chunks of tissue, they took twelve. Plus three from the lymph node, plus the poke for the blood draw and the THREE POKES it took the nurse to get the damn IV in (more on that later)...all in all, I had 18 holes stabbed into me that day! There, that's dramatic.
The biopsies went fine and didn't show anything exciting and the clips got put where they belonged. I do think I am developing a hematoma in the lymph node, however -- either that, or they left a walnut in there. (Don't worry, I'm going to get it checked.)
The next time around went something like this: fly all night, arrive at the crack of dawn bleary-eyed and heartburning, Mom picks me up, we go to Brugger's Bagels (a cinnamon-raisin bagel and cream cheese being a rare treat that I allow myself only on chemo day...even though that's once a week now...hmm...), I get a bagel and a hot chai, I take the hot chai and spill it while getting back into the car, scalding my left butt cheek (yes, there was a mark) and soaking my pants and the car seat, we get to the hospital, I forget the damn chai in the car and don't realize it until it's been valet-ed away and we're inside, I think "screw it," and finally settle into eat my first bite of bagel (knowing I'll have at least twenty minutes before they get to me), kick off my shoes, pull out my book, unwrap my bagel and find a napkin and....and they call me back for bloodwork. That's cancer for you.
Oh, and back to the nurse who can't find a vein -- just a word of advice for those prospective medical school students and nursing school students out there: if you cannot manage to put a needle into a vein in a young healthy woman with big blue popping veins, perhaps you should consider ANOTHER LINE OF WORK. As in, one in which your primary task all day long is not to stab IV needles into the veins of sick, tired, cranky people. I had this nurse a few rounds ago, and it took her two tries to get the needle in. I wondered if I was becoming one of those cancer patients with horrible collapsed veins that no one can ever find. But, since it hadn't happened since, I figured it was just a fluke. Until I had her again. And this time, it took three tries: poke, "oops," pull back plunger, get no blood, gouge around under my skin, "hmm...," searching searching, poke, push in saline, "OUCH," "oops, sorry," gouging gouging gouging, "nope, the vein rolled," pull out, repeat process. Well, actually, I only gave her two tries before I said "Okay, enough, time for someone else to try this." The next nurse got it right away.
From now on I will be one of those obnoxious patients that sidles up to the ward nurse before my treatment and asks NOT to have "that nurse over there in the kitty-cat scrubs." This is one of those things I probably wouldn't have done a year ago; I wouldn't have wanted to be mean, I wouldn't have wanted to hurt the bad nurse's feelings, I would've just sat there and let her gouge around under my skin while I gritted my teeth. But then again, a year ago I didn't knock over old ladies on the jetway in the rush for the bulkhead seats either. So I guess things change.
The nice thing about going to Raleigh every week is that I get to see my Mom and the Williamsons/Gullies, and stay at their house. So once a week, I get to see Hudson, have a home-cooked meal, sleep in a big soft quiet bed, and soak in a huge tub. The tradeoff is that I have to fly 2,000 miles and have chemotherapy to do it.
So, to sum up:
New Developments:
-aversion to untalented nurses
-lots of dark downy fuzz on my head (pictures coming)
-the hair on my right arm is falling out (not the left arm, just the right)
-my eyelashes are finally giving up the ghost as well
-I've received a beautiful new alpaca hat sent by a friend
-I'm about to become an "Elite" member of several frequent-flyer programs
-I may or may not be coming down with the flu that has been infecting the rest of the company. Stay tuned for details.
Cons of Chemo:
-chemo
-heartburn
-eyelash loss
-too much time in the Dallas airport, where the 5am breakfast options consist of Taco Bell and Dickey's Barbecue Pit
-exhausting plane travel that often makes me want to yak
Pros of Chemo:
-cinnamon-raisin bagels
-seeing family
-soaking in a tub big enough to swim in
-a home-cooked meal
These sessions have gone fairly smoothly, as far as chemotherapy goes. No horrible reactions, no intense 9-hour hospital stays, no violent bodily changes. My hair is still doing weird things, I still have obnoxious heartburn 3 out of every 7 days, and my feet tingle about half the mornings I get up. I generally have to get up around 4am and fly 2,000 miles once a week, and occasionally the flights make me feel like puking.
My first treatment of the new year was rather more exciting because it also involved further biopsies (exactly like I had done before my diagnosis), and having wee metal clips put into my breast and my lymph node, so that the surgeon will be able to better see where to cut and what to remove (important, no?). The biopsies, while not terribly painful, are also not terribly fun. They lay you down and squish your parts and stab you full of lidocaine and then take tiny bites of your flesh. My doctor had a med student trailing her, so it was actually a little more disturbing than it was the first time, because she was constantly pointing at the screen (which I could see) and illustrating everything she was doing: "See this huge needle here, and we want to POKE (and she'd poke while she said that) right here into the middle of the lymph node, and you have to PUSH pretty hard to get through all that dense tissue, and you can see the lidocaine SQUIRT out into the little pocket in front of the needle..." It went on from there. They take several tiny "scoops" of tissue samples out of each area, and then x-ray them to be sure they've gotten the tissue they want. Unfortunately they missed the first time around in the breast, and had to re-scoop...so instead of six little chunks of tissue, they took twelve. Plus three from the lymph node, plus the poke for the blood draw and the THREE POKES it took the nurse to get the damn IV in (more on that later)...all in all, I had 18 holes stabbed into me that day! There, that's dramatic.
The biopsies went fine and didn't show anything exciting and the clips got put where they belonged. I do think I am developing a hematoma in the lymph node, however -- either that, or they left a walnut in there. (Don't worry, I'm going to get it checked.)
The next time around went something like this: fly all night, arrive at the crack of dawn bleary-eyed and heartburning, Mom picks me up, we go to Brugger's Bagels (a cinnamon-raisin bagel and cream cheese being a rare treat that I allow myself only on chemo day...even though that's once a week now...hmm...), I get a bagel and a hot chai, I take the hot chai and spill it while getting back into the car, scalding my left butt cheek (yes, there was a mark) and soaking my pants and the car seat, we get to the hospital, I forget the damn chai in the car and don't realize it until it's been valet-ed away and we're inside, I think "screw it," and finally settle into eat my first bite of bagel (knowing I'll have at least twenty minutes before they get to me), kick off my shoes, pull out my book, unwrap my bagel and find a napkin and....and they call me back for bloodwork. That's cancer for you.
Oh, and back to the nurse who can't find a vein -- just a word of advice for those prospective medical school students and nursing school students out there: if you cannot manage to put a needle into a vein in a young healthy woman with big blue popping veins, perhaps you should consider ANOTHER LINE OF WORK. As in, one in which your primary task all day long is not to stab IV needles into the veins of sick, tired, cranky people. I had this nurse a few rounds ago, and it took her two tries to get the needle in. I wondered if I was becoming one of those cancer patients with horrible collapsed veins that no one can ever find. But, since it hadn't happened since, I figured it was just a fluke. Until I had her again. And this time, it took three tries: poke, "oops," pull back plunger, get no blood, gouge around under my skin, "hmm...," searching searching, poke, push in saline, "OUCH," "oops, sorry," gouging gouging gouging, "nope, the vein rolled," pull out, repeat process. Well, actually, I only gave her two tries before I said "Okay, enough, time for someone else to try this." The next nurse got it right away.
From now on I will be one of those obnoxious patients that sidles up to the ward nurse before my treatment and asks NOT to have "that nurse over there in the kitty-cat scrubs." This is one of those things I probably wouldn't have done a year ago; I wouldn't have wanted to be mean, I wouldn't have wanted to hurt the bad nurse's feelings, I would've just sat there and let her gouge around under my skin while I gritted my teeth. But then again, a year ago I didn't knock over old ladies on the jetway in the rush for the bulkhead seats either. So I guess things change.
The nice thing about going to Raleigh every week is that I get to see my Mom and the Williamsons/Gullies, and stay at their house. So once a week, I get to see Hudson, have a home-cooked meal, sleep in a big soft quiet bed, and soak in a huge tub. The tradeoff is that I have to fly 2,000 miles and have chemotherapy to do it.
So, to sum up:
New Developments:
-aversion to untalented nurses
-lots of dark downy fuzz on my head (pictures coming)
-the hair on my right arm is falling out (not the left arm, just the right)
-my eyelashes are finally giving up the ghost as well
-I've received a beautiful new alpaca hat sent by a friend
-I'm about to become an "Elite" member of several frequent-flyer programs
-I may or may not be coming down with the flu that has been infecting the rest of the company. Stay tuned for details.
Cons of Chemo:
-chemo
-heartburn
-eyelash loss
-too much time in the Dallas airport, where the 5am breakfast options consist of Taco Bell and Dickey's Barbecue Pit
-exhausting plane travel that often makes me want to yak
Pros of Chemo:
-cinnamon-raisin bagels
-seeing family
-soaking in a tub big enough to swim in
-a home-cooked meal