Unearthing a life.....

My day started at five thirty AM with a shower and a shave and then downstairs to find Allie already at the TV watching cartoons, but he had not followed the correct sequence on the remote and was stuck with one channel only. So I demonstrated the correct sequence so that he could more successfully ace grandpa out in the future. His other grandmother, who brings him in the mornings, has gone to San Diego for a couple of weeks, so Allie is a rare overnight guest on Sunday and Tuesday night for the next two weeks. For breakfast he ordered a butter and peanut butter sandwich on not toasted bread. I also gave him a glass of milk. "I did not ask for milk," he says. "It's for dry mouth emergencies," I reply. I few minutes later I look over and the glass is empty.

At 7:30, NoApologies parents arrive to provide conveyance and misc. child care. Bookworm has her own therapy appointment at the same time as mine, so Mary Ellen will haul me off to the chemo clinic and Bob will look after Aleister and walk him up to the school bus stop at 8:36 to catch the bus at 8:45-8:50. I'm glad that Dr. Bob got to experience a small, but precious, part of my daily weekday life and that he enjoyed it as much as I do. Mostly it's just ten minutes of four small boys playing senseless, ruleless games and an occasional older girl. But a nice part of the day.

So Mary Ellen got me over to the clinic and deposited me at the front door with words of love and good luck. And in I went. Bravely. But probably no more bravely than the couple dozen others who marched in there this morning - and afternoon. Sat down next to a fellow who'd been called in a few minutes before me ... getting a 'spot' near the restroom. Just in case. Who knows what could happen. And I'm sitting there waiting some chance to be able to brag that I'm slated to be there for seven hours, when his nurse comes up to him with his first bag of 'stuff' and says, "Well, Mr. So-and-so, you're going to be with us for eight or nine hours today." And he grumbles, "I know. This is my tenth session!" There went all my bragging rights down the ye oulde drain.

I may be 'cool' on the outside, but on the inside I was being just one more jerk who was entering a roomful of veterans and hoping to impress them with my own chemo battle (which hadn't even been joined yet). I felt lucky that the nurse's remark saved me from likely embarrassing myself. I took slight stock of myself. And straightened up my act. Zipped my lip.

With a pillow in my lap and my arm on the pillow and the neddle in my vein, I was introduced to a big bag of saline, then a small bag of anti-nasea medication, then a small bag of saline, then a medium bag of Alimta, another small bag of saline, then a big bag of Cisplatin, and lastly a final big bag of saline. 8:20 till 3:20 .... seven hours on the old nose.

In my victory photo at the top (taken by Bookworm), I am holding up a special stone that Darlene J. loaned to me. She got it in China (if I'm remembering correctly) and held it through two separate chemo battles against cancer and was an is a survivor. I took it with me today and held it through the Alimta and Cisplatin doses. Bookworm showed up around ten with my lunch (a tuna salad sandwich and three figs) and the New York Times. I had the nine-hour man on my right, a little oriental woman on my left and Bookworm in front of me. She, being more gregarious than I, asked everyone's names and introduced us to each other and engaged all three of us with leading questions. For a moment there I thought she might have created a monster when the woman to my left (who reminded me a lot of my Hispanic once sister-in-law Rosie) began talking like one of those people who never stop once they get going. But she did stop. Anyway it was very comforting to have Bookworm scouched up in front of me for an hour or so. When she finally had to leave to get Allie from the bus, she asked everyone if she could get them anything ... and asked if anyone wanted the New York Times. A woman across the way claimed the paper and I watched it circulate to other during the afternoon. As Bookworm left the nine-hour man said to her, "Better be careful or they'll hire you on here."

It was an eye-opening experience. On the way home Bookworm and I were discussing how we'd alway imagined that chemo-therapy went on privately in secluded little spaces, a lonely process. NOT AT ALL! It takes place in big, well lit rooms with mucho open space and twenty or more patients and mates and caretakers ... and a passle of very pleasant nurses. In a way it's more like a group battle than an individual battle. I felt fine afterwards and am still feel fine this evening. But now I weary and must go drink a bottle of water.

# posted by Clear Creek Girl : 5:49 PM