Thursday, October 28, 2010

Tequila's Big Adventure

Ok, you saw below that things didn't start out very well, but thanks to the medicinal properties of a relaxing shower, and Xanax, it did get better.

Got to Ironwood and met with MO (medical oncologist).  I will probably see him every two weeks.  He told me I really needed to do a Medical Leave of Absence, so I called our company's leave people, and they are going to send him the paperwork.  He wants me out for six months.  Thank gods I am covered.

He told me to get some Ensure, go to McDonald's for shakes (pass!), and iterated that this treatment regimen is going to be tough on me, but I have to keep my weight where it is.

MO took me down to the infusion ward, as I like to call it, and sadly, the place was hopping with people.  And holy crap, I feel SO YOUNG! :)

Now, because I am really, really tired, I'm going to put the rest of my notes here as bullet points.

    • There are 32 chairs in the infusion ward, and we were full.  That made me so sad.
    • As noted, almost every person here is past middle age (and thus, I feel like a teen-ager)
    • The Benadryl did make me very sleepy
    • Next time, I want to get a chair that doesn't face right into the giant clock
    • Something in those infusions got my kidneys pumping and I got my exercise with LOTS of trips to the facilities.
    • I love the staff at Ironwood
    • Did fine through the first chemo, and wondered if maybe it was just saline, but no, there were the words Toxic and Hazardous Material... gads
    • My oncology nurse is Donna :)
    • I ate some Pringles Baked Wheat Jalapeno Sticks, and drank some juice.
    • I want an iPAD!  Ironwood has a hotspot in the infusion ward!
    • The Taxol went first, then we did the Carboplatin
So, really, everything went swimmingly with the chemo.  Then I headed over to radiation, and oooh, what a cool machine this thing is!  Got scanned first to make sure the marks on my body were still in the right place, and then got the treatment.  Afterwards, I got my tattoos where the radiation goes in.  Crapola, how can people stand HUGE, REAL tattoos? 

You know, journaling through it all really helped me to put things into perspective.  Hey, it wasn't a fun day, but it wasn't a trip to Bonzo's House of Horrors, either. :)

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