carolmcb's Cancer Blog
November 2, 2007
Well, it’s Friday again. Chemo therapy day. As usual, I can’t sleep.
This will be the short day with Taxol only. Hopefully, things will go better this week. While the oncologist visit went well last week, the medical center was in disarray. Fortunately, the best “port nurse” was back. So, putting in the line for chemo went smoothly. However, there was a new male nurse. He was so nervous. I think that the only vital sign that he got correct was my temperature. And, that’s automatic. I’m sure he’ll improve. He does have a kind and caring manner.
I foolishly hadn’t paid attention to the scheduling of my appointments with the oncologist and for chemo. They were scheduled only 15 minutes apart. Well, no way. The oncologist is always going to be running behind. In any event, I was already more than an hour late for chemo when I got through with the doctor. Then, I had to schedule the next round of chemo. You have to do that before you leave the cancer clinic since you are holding the doctor’s written orders. The scheduler had a question about everything the doctor had written on the order sheet. I couldn’t answer her questions. She kept getting up and trying to reach the oncologist who was tied up and not to be disturbed. In any event, add 30 more minutes to how late I was for chemo.
I believe that Friday afternoon is one of the most popular times for chemo. Here you get people that are still working coming in on Fridays to lessen the impact on their jobs.
Chemo was packed when I got there. They had fallen behind and there were some people that had been waiting past their appointment time for 2 hours. I waited over an hour in the waiting room and then 25 minutes in the chemo cubicle. By the time the chemo nurse came in, I was pretty upset. Last Friday was the long day. For days with Taxol and Avastin, it takes almost 2 hours or longer. My husband cannot drive after dark. We were going to be after dark if we kept to schedule. Fortunately, I had my favorite chemo nurse and she sped up the drip. We made it home before dark! Thanks to her we avoided having to take 2 very expensive taxi rides. We would have had to leave the car in the medical center parking garage over night and then come back for it the next day.
Most of my days are settling down to a routine of fairly good mornings and then having gastrointestinal problems in the afternoons and evenings. It’s not nausea but other pressure and pain in the gastrointestinal track. Not pleasant and it keeps me from doing things with my husband. He has wanted to go try a new Japanese steak house for months. To me, this doesn’t sound doable at all. Before chemo and after the mastectomy, I felt great but too tired to do more than ride around in the car. Now, that I’m on chemo, I eat scrambled eggs and baked potatoes. Yesterday was a exception. I did feel so good at noon that I made pasta. Well, I boiled some angel hair pasta and opened a jar of pasta sauce to pour over the pasta. But, it was still good to have something different. I paid for it later with gastrointestinal problems but still I did enjoy my lunch. In the cancer world, little things come to mean a great deal.
Before I log off, I want to say this about my husband. He has been absolutely wonderful, outstanding and every other superlative that you can come up with. His routine has been totally destroyed. He is retired but does have a few computer based projects that he works on. He also loves to blog. He is used to spending a lot of time alone in our office. Now, in our new world, I need him to be with me almost constantly. I try to let him have a couple of hours each day when he can do whatever he pleases. He is my rock and my spiritual guide. Without him, I wouldn’t even try to go on through this. I always knew that I loved him but now I am learning how to express to him the depth of that love.
I have no family left of my own. During this, I have also learned how much my husband’s family loves and cares for me. The tragedy of this is that we don’t live in the same towns. With my cancer treatments, I’ve been too ill (even during my off week) to travel to see them. Now, Thanksgiving is coming up. They are planning a big celebration. What if I am too ill to go? This will also be around the time that I have to have all the in-depth testing (bone scans, CT’s, etc). Well, just more to worry about that I have absolutely no influence over.
I hope that everyone has a wonderful Friday and a wonderful weekend.
Thanks for your support - 
Carol
Thank you for your support and I will keep everyone up dated on the new treatment. If everything goes as plan I have my 1st treatment on Thurs. Keep the faith and take care of your self
Cheryl