Our visit followed format similar to those I have with C-Dr: reviewing my experiences since the last chemotherapy treatment, both good and bad. Fortunately there was mostly good, the only bad I had to report is the increased tiredness I've felt the past 3 weeks BUT it's another "Is It, or Isn't It?" type of thing. Is that tiredness due to my extreme dislike for winter and my mind is affected, or is it the winter weather playing havoc with my arthritis laced feet and knees, or have the steadily decreasing blood count numbers (but none in critical areas up to now) taken a dive and this is their toll? I'm curious to see today numbers from the blood work but expect they're not going to be the reason. In looking over my previous blood work the PA seemed to agree with me. Also a discussion, or reminder perhaps, from her that NHL has no cure and will never go away and due to that we'll be forever monitoring it through blood work and other tests to determine its status for the rest of my life. Ya, I knew all that; part of the down-side of the disease of NHL cancer. Then it was a quick once over with checking lymph node areas in neck, arms, abdomen. All okay.Discussion then turned to the timing for my next PET scan and after checking with C-Dr he decided it would be best to do it in February, the week before my next treatment. It was also my preference to wait as I wanted to have some distance of time between the November CT scan and the two chemo treatment rounds since then (up to now) and the next PET scan to allow the chemo benefits (hopefully) of the last two treatments to work their magic.
Ended our visit on a more personal note as our mother's are the same age and she knows my mom lives with me. Brief discussion there and then she said her mother had turned in her car keys after a small fender-bender. "Voluntarily?" I asked, and she answered in the affirmative. Wow.
Then in to the infusion room. Picked my "the chair" for the day. The chair across from me was occupied and 5 to 7 other patients were in other chairs in there on and off during the day. When the guy across from me left I got out my camera to snap pic but that chair was occupied again before I could blink. Actually he picked a good chair because you have a view of the hallway and back office file room so there's a lot to watch while you're stuck in it. Today my preference was a view to the outside and since they only had blinds open on one window...anyway, here's my view today; or at least the left side of my view.
Infusion steps were exactly the same as previous 5 rounds so I won't bore you with those details again!
However, something I've not shown before is my sleeping companion for the night of ChemoDay#1. By keeping the Huber needle and IV access line in place it makes it so they don't have to access the port a second time and also saves money for supplies not used! You've seen the port and IV line in use here during my first treatment (shown under the "me, my port and IV" comment) but once I leave for the day this comes home with me. The port was implanted 3 days before my 1st treatment and was still too tender to try and deal with this sleeping arrangement at that time. I've been doing this since chemo round#2. Because I move around a lot in bed during the night a [TMI warning] leisure/sleep bra helps to contain this take-home equipment in 'the vault' and the only remaining thing left is arranging pillows until I get in a comfortable position. I've always worried about the Huber needle coming out of the port, but after doing this 5 times now I believe them when they say it won't happen (or is exceedingly rare).
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