But think of what it is like for new parents. You have this little living breathing human being you have to care for and watch over. What's one of the biggest things new parents talk about? The importance of a routine. Jackie and Ben are doing it, with a little trial and error, she says. But establishing and keeping a rough schedule is important. So it is with cancer too.
I think when you have your first baby (again, I'm guessing and going off of what my girls tell me) every task is a little more involved. Getting dressed (you and baby), taking a shower (if you even get to), getting in the car (much more of an ordeal than just hopping in the drivers seat and throwing you pocketbook on the passengers seat) all take a little longer. Again, I'm realizing cancer is like that too.
See, eventually, when God lets me have babies, this cancer will have actually prepared me a bit.
Everything is an ordeal. The cancer routine is this:
14 day chemo cycle
Day 1: 3 hr infusion, shot, bloodwork
Day 2: 1 1/2 hour infusion, rescue drug
Day 3: shot
Day 4: rescue drug
Day 5: shot, bloodwork
Day 6: rescue drug
Day 7: shot
Day 8: 5 hour infusion
Day 9: White Blood cell booster shot
Day 10 - 14: recover
Ugh, I'm exhausted just writing it all out. Kristen, did I get it right? (Kristen is my keeper at Dr. Evans office. She's a good egg. She also said I didn't get an F that first day. I think she's just trying to be nice.)
So the routine starts on a Wednesday now. It was originally Tuesday, but we switched to Wednesday. Each Wednesday is a chemo infusion, every other Thursday is an infusion, with some chemo shots in between. The "rescue drug" is sort of an antidote to the shot to keep the side effects at bay.
Because Dr. Goldstein in Boston said we would we doing this for several months, I'm hoping to get into some kind of routine. Yet to be honest, I wake up every morning, sit up in bed and wait 10 seconds to see how I feel. Sometimes I lay right back down, sometimes I just jump out of bed (after the dogs remove themselves from my legs), sometimes I just sit there for a full minute trying to decided. Either way, Chris is laying next to me saying, "How do you feel today, Bubba? Is there anything I could get you that would make you happy?" He's a good egg too.
Wednesday's infusion was the longer one, supposed to be 5 hours. I had wonderful helpers Wednesday. The OAL wife pack of Lauren Essis and Tracy Carroll literally rearranged their days to help get me to and from my infusion and then to and from my second to last hair cut. Lauren picked me up and joined me for the first few hours of my drip. I can't remember the last time she and I got to just sit and dish uninterrupted. We both commented that chemo was almost like a small vacation. They run Benadryl through with the chemo infusion. (Kristen, why do we do that? I never asked because I like the effects so much.) Mainly, it makes me loopy. So there was a point where I could feel my lips were not making the words correctly anymore as I spoke to Lauren. This was the same point where she could see my eye lids weren't making it up as fast when I was blinking. She tucked me into my barcalounger and I fell asleep.
I woke up a few hours later and Tracy was arriving to pick me up. She had a special guest with her, a Space Cowboy! Matthew wore the only appropriate outfit for a 5 year old to the Chemo room, his leather Marshall's vest, complete with badge over his Star Wars T-shirt. We tried to spice up his visit by trying on some wigs and head scarves. He is such a good boy and so wonderful to hang out with, he was the highlight of the Chemo Room.
But now the problem was the chemo, it wasn't dripping fast enough. It just kept dripping and dripping and dripping. It didn't seem like the bag was emptying at all. I told Kristen it's because my body is not stupid, it's knows this is poison and it just doesn't want it. We put it on the pump to push it in and it still was taking fooooorrrreeevvvveeeerrr. It got to the point I said I would just drink it to get it in me. Apparently that's not an option. So the infusion went from 5 hours to 8 hours.
This is where chemo makes you late. The Carrolls were forced to hang out with me that whole time. And the 3:30pm haircut I had scheduled came and went. Kara, my hairstylist extraordinaire, was kind enough to say she would wait after her shift. So now I've missed my appointment and she's staying late to take me. That would be kind enough if we could get there at 5, but because chemo takes forever, we got there at 5:45. It was another marathon day. And people who are so giving of their time to beginning with had to be even more giving of their time because chemo makes you late.
This is where chemo makes you late. The Carrolls were forced to hang out with me that whole time. And the 3:30pm haircut I had scheduled came and went. Kara, my hairstylist extraordinaire, was kind enough to say she would wait after her shift. So now I've missed my appointment and she's staying late to take me. That would be kind enough if we could get there at 5, but because chemo takes forever, we got there at 5:45. It was another marathon day. And people who are so giving of their time to beginning with had to be even more giving of their time because chemo makes you late.
No comments:
Post a Comment