Chemo #26

Well, yesterday at first thing in the morning, Tim took me to Chemo #26. We got there before any other patients and any of the staff, so we had a few minutes to pick my favourite chair, take some pictures of the empty day clinic to give you a better idea of the size of it and for Tim to get me a bagel (God Love Him) and catch a few minutes of the Swiss/Russia game in the waiting room.

The view from my chair - Tim and I were the first ones in and the last ones out. Unfortunately we were delayed by about an hour because about twenty minutes into the Avastin infusion I developed a five-alarm red neck and face flush and the instant concern of the nurses was that I was having an allergic reaction to the chemo. So they had to stop my infusion temporarily and give me an injection of Benadryl. The redness started to fade so quickly that they decided it was just likely a flush due to the fact that my blood pressure was a little high and platelets a little low. Avastin tends to cause bleeding and it could have created that reaction to the blood vessels in my neck and the fact that it is always like a damn sauna in the medical day clinic it is possible that I was over-heated. This is the third time it has happened - always in Cambridge, never in Saskatoon. Weird. We will have to keep an eye on that.  My point in telling this story is not only that it delayed my day at the hospital, but also that combined with gravol had me absolutely stoned. I haven't been that baked since I had my surgery. I couldn't even lift my hands off my lap. Gave everyone a good opportunity to make jokes at my expense. 

Tim and I met a few more ladies and struck up conversations about our lives and diagnoses. We spent the morning with a little senior citizen lady, born and raised in Scotland until her teens, then she moved to various southern states in the US. Funny - a Scottish lady with an Alabama accent. Anyway, she was a little spitfire even though she has the worst type of leukemia there is - Chronic Lymphoma Leukemia - Negative 5 with a special gene that complicates thing. According to her, the is no cure and it was great to talk to someone who is in a similar boat with me who has such a positive outlook. Of course, she has lived about 40 more years than me, but whatever - she was a hoot. 

I am not thrilled with the fact that my platelets are sitting around 83 because if it gets down to 75 they are talking about delaying treatments a bit to let my body recover. Don't know how long it will take to get to that level or if it will bounce back on it's own - but I sure hope it doesn't happen while I am in Saskatoon. It would stink to spend the money flying out there and being unable to get a treatment. Ah well, I guess I will cross that bridge if I come to it.

I got home and went straight to bed for a few hours. Then Tim came to check on me and the kids wanted to crawl into bed and hang with me:

Then we went downstairs to color before bed:

And then at bedtime, Bailey crawled into bed with Avery:

Overall, it was a very long day. Tim was exhausted after sitting at the hospital with me for seven hours and then solo-parenting most of the evening. As a result he slept well last night and thanks to the steroids, I got about two hours. Oh well....there's always an afternoon nap in my future.