Best pizza ever

Okay, to give you an idea of how out of it I've been feeling, this pizza was eaten a few weeks ago on April 17th, with my nephew at Accademia di Vino, which has the best pizza ever... based upon personal experience. For all I know, you may have found a place that's even more sublime, but this place has razor thin, supercrisp pizza.

Mine was a special that night, with ramps (similar to wild leeks/scallions), lemon zest, and smoked bacon....Oh. So. Good. And then for dessert, I had another special, coffee creme brulee with (I forget what specialty citrus item) and (most likely) creme fraiche or something similar. Clearly it was the main item which remains vivid in my memory.

And now, onto more positive stuff -- I got the results of my free company physical today. It's really quite detailed and involves fasting, blood tests, EKGs, etc. Since every year, employees above a certain tenure and staff level qualify for a free one, I usually take them up on it. My reminder notice came sometime in December.

As you all know, my life has taken a drastic left turn since then, but I decided to keep the appointment since I wanted to know how the rest of my poor body was doing while I'm on chemo.

Good news: everything else is fine! The physician took pains to point out that my liver is doing very well, since it is key to clearing out all sorts of toxic residue from chemo and whatever other medications I get. (Hooray!) And my cholesterol is also doing very well (181 overall, 65 HDL [the good cholesterol], 98 LDL [the bad cholesterol], and 89 for triglycerides [what I mentally translate to "residue from fried fatty food").

To give you a better sense of the desired ranges, it is preferred that HDL is over 40, LDL is under 130, triglycerides are under 150, and total cholesterol is under 200.

So: YAY! And now, lunch time is OVAH, so I had better get back to work, since this afternoon looks brutal, but hey -- at least I still have a job! Oh, and there is minute progress on the oncologist-switching front, but will report back when there are further developments. Bye-eee!

Round 3

Well, I think I've finally found a positive side effect for my otherwise misery-inducing chemo. Yes, it's true -- there is one, an actual RTBT. See all that blooming greenery outside my window? Normally, at this time of year, I'd be sneezing my head off, rubbing my eyes, and generally wishing I could claw out the inside of my throat. THIS year, thanks to the Decadron I get during chemo, I have not had any "seasonal allergies".

Yep, I get dosed with this steroid because one of the chemo drugs -- probably the ever annoying Cytoxan which also causes interstitial cystitis -- makes the skin on my arms, neck, and chest itch wildly, almost as if I had hugged a poison oak or something. (Fun, eh?)

So far, that's about the only upside I can see to all of the ever expanding panopoly of drugs I get, but I'll take it... since everything else is just SO MUCH fun: nausea, fatigue, bladder irritation, bloating (also from the steroid -- yum), "binding" (as my friend Judy so artfully puts it) and other digestive unhappiness, and changes in smell and taste.

The fact that I was pretty much gone from here for a week should tell you how perky I've been feeling lately. Usually, I get back to feeling almost normal right before it's time for the next round of chemo, but this past round left me feeling like road pizza all the time. And this past Friday was round 3 (only FIVE more to go! bah! and for a breakdown of the 3 hour routine, check out my April 3rd post.) So not surprisingly, I slept for 13 hours one night this weekend, and then 10 hours last night + 2 hours naps every day. (Do I sound like a geriatric or what?)

I took today off from work and did some work at home. I know that's an oxymoron, but the ability to crawl into bed for a nap when the nausea was too much for me, well, that's worth taking some work home.

And I know I need to drink a LOT of fluid (10-12 glasses/day) to flush out the chemo from my system, but too much water makes me queasy, so I know I've been insufficiently hydrated this weekend (for a chemo patient -- not for normal humans). Therefore, I've been searching for all sorts of other stomach-settling fluids: seltzer, Gus' ginger ale, cranberry juice mixtures, iced green tea, OJ, etc. (I'm sure the combination of steroids and fruit juices has also contributed to my 10 lb. weight gain since the surgery, but that's the least of my problems these days.)

Meanwhile, my oncology team does not seem to want to allow me to switch (ggrrrr...) from Fridays to Thursdays, but I am placing my faith in the social worker at the hospital, who is well versed in the ways of medical bureaucracy. Unfortunately, this means I will be in limbo for the next several weeks during the transition, a situation that pleases me not at all (and makes my sweetie severely displeased with the hospital administration) since I plan to avoid dealing with the current team at all costs... well, unless I wind up with another fever requiring a trip to the ER again -- then I will have to speak to them. Otherwise, I refuse to ask them any questions because I like and trust them THAT much.

This past Friday, I met with a different oncology team because the usual doctor was away, and I really liked the new oncologist, so I know it's not that I dislike ALL oncologists, just my current one. However, since the covering oncology team is also on Fridays only, and my reason for switching is to move to Thursdays (more on that in a moment) I will not have the option of working with the new doctor.

Yes, the hospital really doesn't like people to switch teams because time is money, blah blah blah, so explaining that you don't want to work with your current doctor because you don't feel comfortable with them is not enough reason. I mean, just because they are in charge of your cancer treatment, why should you need to trust them and feel at ease? (Do I sound bitter? 'Cos I feel bitter.) No, they will only respect a logistical reason such as: if I get chemo on Thursdays, I can work Fridays and Mondays and collapse at home on the weekends, but I get chemo on Fridays, then I need to take off Mondays as well. (Day 1 = treatment day; days 3 & 4 = worst days for me).

So the current asinine compromise is to schedule my next treatment on Thursday, May 14th, but not see the oncologist. (TELL ME how this makes any sense.) If they tell me I have to go see her on Friday the 15th I will refuse, since the whole point of this exercise is to reduce my days off!

Just thinking about this is irking me so I had better log off and go relax before going to sleep.

Wiped out

I'm really, really tired. Perhaps this is because I just spent 4 hours at the hospital, waiting to see the surgeon for my last post-op follow up (next visit: October). Perhaps it's because I spent almost half an hour sobbing in the social worker's office. Or perhaps it's because the issue of switching oncologists is stressing me out. No -- scratch that: it's definitely stressing me out, but the sobbing is exhausting too.

That's the most sustained crying jag I've had since my diagnosis on December 30th, so I guess I was due for an implosion.

Now that I'm a bit more removed from last week's fiasco, I'm going to say that while I'm sure that my oncologist and her team are perfectly competent (or why would they be employed where they are?) clearly the chemistry is so not right. Since I've liked everyone else during this endless process -- the physicians & technicians at Columbia Presbyterian, my surgeon's team, the receptionists (between all of my medical appointments, I've spoken to a lot of them, trust me), the blood techs, the ER staff -- clearly it's a chemistry thing. And while it may be completely unreasonable of me (I admit it) the last 2 weeks of unpleasantness have fused in my mind with this particular team.

Apparently, the hospital really doesn't like it when you switch teams because switching teams sometimes results in a delay in treatment while the new physician understandably evaluates your case themselves, and time is money. (I'm hoping my otherwise fabulous insurer won't pitch a fit over this... there could be more tests, etc.)

So basically, saying you're not comfortable with your team is not enough. (Hence, the explosion of tears at the thought of being unable to switch.) Oh no. But logistical reasons such as day of the week (my current oncologist only sees patients there on Fridays) hold more weight, so I told the social worker something I had noticed a while ago: if my chemo was on Thursdays, then I wouldn't need to take off Mondays since my worst days (day 1 is treatment day) are days 3 and 4, when I sleep like the dead.

So the social worker will present it as an economic issue (which it is -- now is not the time to start racking up endless absenteeism, not in this economy: yes I know they can't legally lay off only me, but if they lay off a few people including me, well...)

There's much more hoohah, and some actual pleasant news, but I am just going to crawl into bed now and try to sleep.

Oh, and the orchids above are the ones I bought for my mom for her birthday on February 27th. Looking good still, eh?

What's wrong with this picture?

Well, nothing much (unless you have allergies -- note the budding trees). And oh yeah, what time is dawn these days?

Yeah, not feeling so hot this morning. Couldn't fall asleep last night, and could fall BACK to sleep this morning when I woke up well before dawn. I even had time to make McCann's steel cut Irish oatmeal this morning. That is just so WRONG, says the night owl. Happened yesterday too. Bear in mind, I am still really physically wiped out, but unfortunately, my brain cannot calm down and let me drift off to sleep.

(The physical lack of appetite I put down to the affects of the fever, etc. I mean, how else to explain weird moments like the fact that I didn't even half finish my frites from Les Halles Downtown last night? WTF? Those frites RULE.)

I suspect this stress/distress goes back to the fact that after yesterday's late afternoon conversation, my onco-nurse (and doc, but mostly nurse) has upset me so much that I am going to fire that team and swap docs. (Each oncologist has their own nurse, so it's a arbitrary pairing type of situation.)

And on that exciting and mysterious note, I am going to log off and get dressed for work.

Tune in soon for another exciting episode of "As The Squirrel Turns..."

101.0

No, that's not an FM radio frequency. That was my temperature on Tuesday. Well THAT certainly explains why I felt crappy.

Yes, shortly after I posted here on Tuesday, I just gave up the fight to plow through till quitting time and asked my (highly understanding and generous boss) if I could go over to my mom's and pass out for the rest of the day. The idea of spending almost an hour getting home on the subway just made me shudder, and her apartment is just a short ride cab ride away. (Besides, once again: feel really, really sick = crawl home to mom, ya know?)

Plus she had just called and said, "Something's been beeping for hours in the apartment and I don't know what it is." Great. Just what you want to hear from your 80 year old parent who lives alone: an alarm has gone off, and she doesn't know which one.

Anyway, I dragged myself over to the drugstore a few bloacks away from the office, bought a thermomenter, and cabbed it to mom's, where I curled up in my old bed under the blanket, the coverlet, and a dressing gown (I was COLD). I passed out for a while and then took my temperature later in the afternoon. 101.0 degrees. Oops.

Well, anytime a chemo patient's temp goes above 100.4 you're supposed to call your oncologist, so I did.

What I didn't realize was that this meant she would then tell me to go to the cancer ER (75+ blocks away from my mom's). DOH!

Yeah, just what you want to do when you feel flattened by a semi: get dressed and travel halfway across Manhattan.

Thankfully when I told my sweetie the happy news, he promptly said he'd meet me at the ER. (By the way, I call it the cancer ER because it is an ER dedicated exclusively to cancer patients. No car crash victims, gunshot and stabbing injuries -- think of the germs!!! -- just us chemo folk.)

So we then spent the next 3 hours in the ironically named Urgent Care center. (My initial visit -- a perverse milestone, as I suspect chemo patients may wind up there more than once during the course of their treatment.) During the second half of my sojourn there, we were moved from the reception area to the triage area (the cubicles with the gurneys, for those of you lucky enough never to have set foot inside an ER) where I could lie down, and doze under my sweater and down coat.

The upshot is, that the initial round of tests (I am still waiting for the results of the second batch, which take longer) they determined that my blood counts were not dangerously low, and in fact that my white cells and leukocytes were way up. In short, I had some kind of infection but it was unclear what.

Had my counts (red, white, leuko) been too low, I would have been treated to my first night ever as an inpatient. Having seen just how much fun that's been for my mom and my sweetie's dad, I am happy to pass up that milestone, thanks.

Finally they sent me home with a nice bottle of Cipro to treatment my unknown infectious thingie, which I am guessing was most likely related to the cause of my "acute uncomplicated cystitis", bacterial or not. (I have to say, I am really not pleased with my oncologist so far, and am considering switching, since the ER physician said that my white counts were already high last week -- a fact which apparently didn't make enough of an impression to cause her to give me Cipro THEN!)

I took yesterday off, since my temp was still 100.5 in the morning. (Oh, once again, proof that I was really feeling off: watching 2 hours of food network caused absolutely no hunger, although I may try this espresso brownie recipe in the future -- conveniently, there is a co-worker birthday next week)

Hallelujah - by last night, not only had my fever finally left, but so had (FINALLY) my "non-bacterial bladder irritation". While the former is very important, you have NO IDEA how grateful I am for the latter (unless you too have experienced a UTI).

Today, I am back at work, and once again, posting during my lunch time and adding food porn here. (My ER visit caused my sweetie and I to miss my friend Laura's Peking duck shindig, so in lieu of that, I give you: my mom's belated (my fault) Ching Ming dinner for my dad on Saturday.)

Oh, and today's RTBT: Cipro!

BC vs. AD

So I've been thinking about these two little acronyms a lot this year, and thought it would be appropriate (since it was just Easter) to muse aloud:

• BC = Before Cancer -- can barely remember life before Dec. 30th
• AD = After Diagnosis -- it's a whole 'nother era

I mean, I literally cannot remember when I felt carefree and completely healthy. (Oh, the things we take for granted!) Nowadays I may sometimes feel okay, or pretty normal, or less worse, but it's always overshadowed by the lurking spectre of the next round of chemo. Blech. (That would be Friday, 4/24, by the way.)

And more frequently, I tend to feel either exhausted/fatigued, nauseated, bloated (since I am to drink 10-12 glasses of liquid a day to flush the chemo from my system -- ironic, no?), achy, or a thrilling combination of any and/or all of the above.

It's like when you feel well, you don't viscerally remember what it's like to feel crappy. Conversely, when you're ill, you cannot imagine/remember the feeling of wellbeing that you have when your body is healthy.

Guess where I fall on the spectrum at the moment.

In fact, I am tempted to ask for the afternoon off sick. Maybe I will just leave early at 4pm.

The kicker is that my friend Laura is here for a few days on home leave from her posting in Africa, and everyone has been looking forward to a big Peking duck dinner out tonight. Intellectually, I am too, especially since I haven't seen Laura since August. Physically, I just want to sleep for a few hours.

As my sister reminded me last night (I am such a rocket scientist sometimes) I can't expect to always just pick up and do stuff the way I used to, even little things like going out for dinner or visiting friends. My body just isn't up to it.

Mentally, that's a hard concept to really grasp, ya know?

Witness: my sweetie & I were supposed to go visit his parents on Sunday, and both he and my mom pointed out on saturday that perhaps I should skip this visit, due to my current need to remain chained near the loo at all times. (Did I mention they live 2 hours away in south Jersey?)

I was bummed but yet relieved (2 hour car ride each way? how many rest stops would that have entailed? four? six? eight?) and sent him off with my present for his dad, who is also going through chemo.

His mom said he's a bit down and I totally get that, since I've only have 2 treatments and am worn out. He's been going to (48-hr. treatments) since last year!

So I bought him a milk chocolate egg from Maison du Chocolat (one location is near my office) which is filled with chocolate fishes and chocolate seashells. (Those wacky French ;-P) Hope they send me a photo when they crack the egg!

I also bought my sweetie some chocolate-covered ginger, which is what you see in the little red box. (The nice French salesman let me try some. Yum.)

OKay, lunch time is OVAH.

Sort of Seder (not)

Misery. Okay, I'm just going to start out with the depressing stuff. Then we'll get to the food porn.

Warning: embarrassing medical stuff ahead. Guys in particular may want to avert your eyes. (I'll let you know when it's over.)

So this week I've been suffering from all of the joyous symptoms of a UTI (urinary tract infection, a/k/a cystitis). Women will know what I mean, and cringe in sympathy.

For you MEN, anatomy dictates that it is unlikely that you will have ever had it, so -- you know when you have a cut in your mouth and you drink something acidic like vinegar, and your eyes water in pain? Okay, got that memory of pain set in your mind? Now transfer that sensation somewhere else even more sensitive. Yeah. Like that.

But wait -- it gets better: not only do you experience that special agony, BUT the UTI causes you to pee extremely frequently, so you get to experience it A LOT. Many times a day, in fact. Now think about having that going on from Wednesday till today. Yeah. I'm tired.

Oh, and as an added bonus (yes, there's more) last night I got up once an hour because of said demon infection. So I didn't have an 8-hour night of sleep. Oh no, I had 8 one-hour naps, which is SO not the same. I'm exhausted.

Not surprisingly, I wound up taking Thursday off to go to MSKCC and have a urinalysis done (and also because I was wiped out from the pain), and on Friday they told me, "Oh no, you don't have a UTI -- no bacteria in the test results. No, you're just experiencing bladder irritation from the Cytoxan, so we're not going to prescribe any antibiotics. Drink more fluids." Now bear in mind I'm already drinking 8-10 glasses of stuff (64-80 oz.) daily.

I was ready to cry.

My co-worker Dennis suggested I contact Cytoxan user forums or their equivalent, so I e-mailed the ladies in the MSKCC adjuvant therapy support group. They were wonderful. Two of them immediately called me. One of them gave me some suggestions for over-the-counter meds for which I was profoundly grateful. The sympathy alone was priceless (vs. the "oh well" attitude of the onco-nurse). I heart these ladies, all of whom are having way stronger treatment than I am but still found time to reach out to me, the newbie.

Eventually the nurse called me back ("gee, I don't know why I didn't think of this before") with a suggestion for pyridium, which I promptly ran out and bought after work at Duane Reade. The side effects of the pyridium (see link above) while possibly weird are NO CONTEST for the symptoms of cystitis. (Ironic, no? Side effects of something taken to combat the side effects of chemo. Fun.)

Ladies, take note: some of the brand names are AZO, Uricalm, Cystex, Uristat.

So things are slowly getting better. Now I'm just suffering from "abdominal (or suprapubic) pain" and frequent (vs. insanely frequent) dashes to the bathroom and all of the attendant unpleasantness that follows.

Okay. It's safe now. You can come back and read about food.

We're just going to indulge in food porn from here on out.

(By the way, I am listening to an NPR piece on DEEP FRIED MAYONNAISE. Are you scared yet? I am! Actually, it's deep fried hollandaise sauce, but still....! If I were feeling less miserable, I'd be perversely curious instead of merely appalled.)


Ummm... this week was the beginning of Passover, so the sight of the tableware to the left in a Pylones store was hilariously appropriate: Matzoh plates AND matzoh placemats! Only in NYC folks. ;)

That was before I went to have a roast chicken, grilled asparagus, baked & roasted potato dinner with my friend Jackie Thursday night. Yum!

I brought the fresh asparagus, which she "grilled" on the broiler with some olive oil & salt. We each split half of (but couldn't finish) a cornish hen. She baked potatoes (one each) and the chicken came with itty bitty roast potatoes. (The last time I had a meal with TWO types of potatoes, I was in Ireland!) Oh, AND she made bread from scratch. Ooh la la!

So does roast chicken count as a sort of shabbas dinner? ;-) I understand from my long suffering friends that "real" seders by their Orthodox relatives are nowhere near as tasty as what we had. Heh.

That was Thursday. On Friday, I invited my friend Sam over for homemade lasagna (which I had assembled on Wednesday night).

Behold, my [ground] turkey, spinach (whole wheat) lasagna, with part-skim mozz & part-skim ricotta (pre-baking):


I was kind of concerned about my generous hand with the ingredients, since it towered about an inch taller than the sides of the 9" x 13" pan:


I assuaged my fears by putting the 9" x 13" pan inside a larger pan, sort of like a double boiler. I think it turned out okay, don't you?

But why is it that there is no such thing as making a LITTLE lasagna?

After a generous serving for me, and a hefty serving for Sam, this is what I was left with:

So I sent him home with a big slab in one of the plastic containers, along with a slab of the banana-oatmeal bread I made (4 pts/slice) which both smelled and tasted yummity!



Now I'm going to go have a slice of said banana bread and go curl up in a little ball on the couch and listen to Car Talk on NPR. (Yes, I know I don't drive, but these guys are tres amusing nonetheless, and the questions they get...!)

Monday, Monday

Today was a delightful day weatherwise. Ugh. Luckily, I didn't need to go farther than my couch, which was good, since I only had the energy to eat and nap. Granted I did do about 2 hours of work (my trade-off with my boss for taking today off to recover from chemo) but it was a hard climb to squeeze some sense from my brain.

I'm not sure how with 12 hours of sleep every night this weekend, and the occasional 16 hour night, I still need so much naptime. (Did I mention the 1 hour nap at lunchtime today?)

Oh, and it may sound like a hard bargain, but really, it is nice of my boss to allow me to collapse like a lump on my couch on the Mondays after my Friday chemo. I can imagine other people requiring me to use a vacation day. And just because someone is doing the decent thing, doesn't mean that such decency should be taken for granted, yeah?

I'm trying to notice the good things in life... like the ability to become a lump on my couch in my fuzzy robe and jammies, after FreshDirect brings me seltzer and Gus' Extra Dry Ginger Ale, asleep under a quilt made for me years ago by my friend the Dread Pirate Rodgers. (It's a really beautiful quilt, by the way. See? If you want to read about the intricacies of the many hours of work that went into the crafting of the quilt, please see my friend's page devoted this particular project.)

One old roommate once described me as relentlessly perky (the horror!) and while I hope I'm not THAT bad, I really am trying to keep a positive outlook on things. Cancer doesn't mean that life sucks (well, okay, I would return it to sender if I could, I suppose) but it does mean -- in my mind -- that it's a chance to appreciate all the good things there are in my life. Like my sweetie, my gals, & my pals my family, my extremely decent co-workers, you know... stuff! :-)

I have even started trying to weed through my insanely huge yarn stash, and both organize it a little better (and no, the giant mound of half-finished projects on the living room rug does not count as "organization") and de-stash (i.e., winnow down the hoard).

You see before you on the left my most recent success: a batch of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Sportweight (since discontinued) which I bought one year at the Yarn Riot. It's actually quite nice yarn, but I simply faced the fact that I would never actually DO anything with it. And voila! I priced it well enough on eBay that it sold within 24 hours. Yippee! Now all 3,000+ yards will go reside in someone else's home (in Fargo, ND, actually -- whee!)

There's also another batch up for bid (eBay item number: 290308178134) and while that hasn't sold yet, it has at least a bid on it, so I know it will be leaving my home one way or another. Hooray! (Despite the fact that I bought it at the Riot with a precise project and recipient in mind, clearly, it has not come to pass.)

Speaking of homes, my poor mom was looking forward to a visit from me tonight, but I had completely forgotten, because I was just desperately trying to remain conscious while sprawled on the couch. So when I called her to say "hi!" well -- oops. So I will go over tomorrow night after work and let her feed me her homemade oxtail soup. (Hey, warmed over soup by my mom is still way better than freshly made soup from anyone else!)

And finally, speaking of hopelessly delayed projects a la my knitting & yarn stash, here is today's shot of the FIVE YEAR traffic circle project in front of my building. How do I know it's been five years? Well, my 5-yr. ARM is going to adjust this summer, and they broke ground the week before I moved in. Dorks.

Holy tostitos, Batman!

My friends and family are amazing. Truly. I have broken the $1,500 mark in my Avon Walk donations ... fund? Already! I'm truly touched. And kind of awed. When I expressed my astonishment to my friend Margaret, she commented (after making a donation -- hooyah!) that "this is when you reap the benefits of being [me]." HA! As the Brits would say, I'm chuffed.

I'm also feeling better about spending rather a chunk of change on buying new running sneakers (or to continue with the Brit theme, trainers) in preparation for my training walks and, eventually, the big 2 day event in October (although I will be getting a successor pair to these in September, so that I can break them in). I am so grateful to my friend Marci for helping me out with the ins and outs of the mysteries of high tech sneakers. She should know -- she runs the NYC Marathon every year!

And then, today my friend Jackie offered to accompany me to chemo, but I felt guilty because it's basically hours and hours of waiting (an hour of it in an examination room while in a pink mammo gown) so I compromised by hanging out with her afterward for a few hours on her comfy new couch, knitting away and indulging in our joint crush on John Barrowman/Capt. Jack. (More on the knitting and DVDs another day, in a different post).

As for the chemo itself, today's episode was not so bad (although unsurprisingly, having an IV stuck in my wrist did hurt -- a fact which apparently amazes some patients according to today's chemo nurse: well, DUH!) and all of my key blood test results came back within acceptable ranges: red blood cell count, white blood cell count, platelet count, and neutrophil count (a type of white blood cell -- never know there were so many flavors!) So since I "passed" my tests, I got more chemo cocktail.

This is how I know that my chemo visit will never be less than 3 hours at the minimum:

-- arrive & check in
-- get finger prick blood test (or whatever that teeny one is called: today's went MUCH better than the first time, since I suggested the 4th finger, which has much thinner skin than the index finger)
-- wait for an hour for the medical oncologist to get the blood test results back (usually sitting in a pink patient gown, and hopefully flipping through a trashy magazine from the waiting room)
-- have a short visit with her (5-10 min.)
-- check in at the chemo desk & wait an hour (or two) for the cocktail to be mixed up for me (try to score some food at this point, since it's noonish)
-- gulp down meds (new ones today: Zofran, for nausea, and Decadron, a steroid for the itchy flush I got last time)
-- enjoy immobolization courtesy of the IV drip for 45 - 90 min.
-- get bandaged up and run away!

Unfortunately, during today's lunch break, I made the mistake of buying a bottle of Honest Tea with my veggie pizza. Naturally, after waiting until I was starving, they were finally ready with my chemo cocktail, so I walfed down the 'za, threw the (unopened) bottle in my bag, and trotted back to the hospital... only to find that it had leaked about 6 oz. of mildly sweetened tea ALL OVER EVERYTHING in my bag! ARGH! You know, minor things, like my notebook with all of my medical notes from each doctor visit, and my CD player, which I use to listen to audiobooks during chemo.

That player's dead now, by the way, so I am pondering buying another one, since I do want to listen to the end of my Elizabeth George murder mystery, Careless In Red. Well, at least they're cheap these days. I was so peeved that I called the company and vented my displeasure that their UNOPENED bottle of tea leaked and drowned everything in my purse. They offered to send me coupons (why would I want MORE?!) and are sending me a mailer to send them the bottle back so they can figure out why it sucked massive wind like that (my words, not theirs of course).

Actually, I was upset enough that I sniffled a little (probably stress over the chemo and not really the dead CD player, although that did annoy the cr*p out of me) and told them that I was really counting on listening to an audiobook while I was at SLOAN-KETTERING having CHEMOTHERAPY. Pah. (Yes, the man I spoke to felt very guilty.)

Okay, now that I've taken it out on the guilty party, I can go back to RTBT:

• good health insurance -- have I mentioned today how grateful I am to have it??
• my friend Jackie -- see above
• my friend Marci -- see above
• my friend Margaret -- see above; she also introduced me years ago to tamago (yum!)
  
• 2 down, 6 to go -- hey, it's better than 7 or 8 more sessions to go!
• date night with my sweetie -- thanks to my various anti-nausea meds, I was able to enjoy a delicious meal (of entirely cooked foods) at Miyagi, mellow little neighborhood joint I like, while he had (sigh) a tray of suski and a big glass of sake. My fried baby octopus, spider roll, iced (UNsweetened) green tea, tamago, and peanut sesame string beans were also not too shabby. :-)
  

By the way, I might disappear from here for a few days, and go pass out (essentially). I also took off Monday from work, just in case. So if you don't hear from me until Tuesday or so, just imagine me napping or on another date night with my sweetie tomorrow (yippee!)

And so, on that note, I leave you with this very detailed (7 min!) video on how to make tamago. There are also shorter ones on YouTube, but I found the techno soundtrack on this one amusing, and the meticulousness appealing.

Gratitude

So it occurs to me that in the midst of all my whining, I haven't paused to reflect lately on the good stuff. So forthwith, RTBT:

• dried ginger -- yum!
  



• simplicity -- one thing about my dietary and medical restrictions is that my morning pill dosage has become veeeery simple. No vitamins, no supplements, nada else.



• Kodo -- check out their (copy restricted) YouTube video. Keeeeewl! Took my friend Marci to see it on March 20th (sort of as a thank you for her many visits accompanying me to the doc -- mostly because I really wanted to see them in their only appearance in the NYC area this year) and she enjoyed it too.
  
  Watching those insanely toned drummers has made me wonder about taking lessons near home, since -- let's face it -- you are more likely to "exercise" if it's an activity you find fun, and not just gym time.



• good family -- we all have families (unless you grew up in an orphanage, at which point, I have just been sooooo insensitive) but it's nice when you actually LIKE your relatives, and I happen to think I have a pretty good bunch. (We're just going to ignore the ones in Brooklyn.)
  
  
  
• good friends -- I can't believe I broke $1,000 in contributions already, for the NYC Avon Walk in October. It makes me all teary-eyed and mushy inside. You guys rock. (I will still continue to ask for more money though...HA!...since I have to raise at least $1,800.)
  
  
  
• my sweetie is back from vacation! He was gone from March 4th to the 21st, and I didn't get to see him until the 25th, due to flu issues, so I'm still all excited whenever we can get together. Next up: date night on Friday! (Sure it's chemo day, but I usually have 12-24 hours before the side effects take me out.)



• magical animal! -- the pork rillette at Les Halles Downtown (see right) is really spectacularly fatty...Yum! My friend Marci called it a ham salad, and really, an appetizer sized portion is all anyone could really handle anyway.



• $0.99 ice cream scoopers -- they work great for making cupcakes! I made a batch last week as a combination "welcome back" for a co-worker who had knee surgery, and "thank you" for all of my co-workers who were so supportive during my leave of absence. Not a word of pressure or complaint about their crushing workload while I was gone (laying off half the department has that effect when even one person is out) but instead only "no, you rest and feel better and come back when you're ready".

So really, I do have a lot to be grateful for, I think. Don't you?

Chemo brain

That's what I'm going to blame last week's brain f*rt on, since I can't believe I was so stupid. Well, at least I haven't gotten a call from HR yet this week (and I'm hoping I never will...) so I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

But yes, there are scientific studies done on the cognitive effects of chemotherapy, and the side effects include "impaired decision-making" and "increased forgetfulness" (as in: mid-sentence). So yeah, other patients have come up with wryly descriptive terms such as "chemo fog" or "chemo brain" -- you get the idea.

Oh well. Here's hoping I don't do anything similarly stupid for the remaining portion of my treatment.

Speaking of the joys of breast cancer -- yes, I say that facetiously, but really, I am always being amazed by the kindness and generosity of my friends, from going with me to the hospital trip after trip, to offering to feed or grocery shop for me, or just checking in to see how I'm doing, I'm frequently left feeling, "Aaawww... you guys rock. *sniffle* Really."

Today for example I was stunned when my friend Helen, who now lives overseas, quietly donated $250 to my AvonWalk account! I mean, I hadn't even asked her yet for money! Jeez. Thank you, Helen!

Yes, we now bring you to the pledge drive portion of my year, since I signed up to participate in the NYC Avon Walk for Breast Cancer this October, and must therefore raise $1,800 in order to fulfill my requirements to participate. (This is in addition to the $65 registration fee I paid in order to legitimately ask you all for moolah.) I will be walking 26 - 39 miles over the course of 2 days in October., with the course covering all of NYC, just like the marathon, except without the traffic lanes being blocked off.

So yes, you're all about to get (or have just received) a panhandling e-mail from me explaining how the money goes not just for research, but also to help the uninsured afford breast cancer treatment (I never knew that part). Consider: my surgery + chemo + radiation = somewhere around US$100K (!!!)

Of course, if you want to bypass all of the semi-shameless begging, you can just go directly to my Avon Walk donation page. ;-)

And the fact that the next knitting project I want to do is modeled in pink is purely coincidental! Honest! It's called "pleat-neck top" (see left) from the spring/summer 2009 issue of KnitSimple. Since the gauge is 20, I could conceivably finish it, perhaps even using the Tahki Willow I frogged from a previous tank top. Since that one was in garter stitch, I'm sure I'll have enough for this one. And although the stated gauge for Tahki Willow is 18, I knit tightly, so I'll have to sctually swatch (!) and see if I knit 20.

In the meantime, I am trundling along on my Lion Micro-Spun baby sweater. The back and fronts are knit all in one piece, and the instructions for "comfy color cardi" are practically incomprehensible, due to all of their corrections, so I'm just working off of their schematic.

Also, I'm planning on changing the collar from V-neck to "regular" or Peter Pan or whatchamacallit, so the schematic diagram is really just a jumping off point, especially since I'll be making it with 4 colors instead of 3, since the pattern calls for their organic cotton, which is thicker than Micro-Spun.

Please note my clever/embarrassed disguise for the Modern Bride bag I received from the Project Bridesmaid people. The bag is made of nice, heavy card stock (or whatever you call it -- oh yeah, did I mention chemo sometimes also interferes with verbal skills?) but there was NO WAY that I'd walk around with a bag screaming "Modern Bride"... Now it just looks like it's some random magazine/store named "Modern" eh?

25 Watts

So I did something so incredibly stupid I wonder if I'll be fired. Going into any further details here would only compound the problem, so it will have to remain vague.

If you really want the gory details, you can call me (after work hours! I can hardly take about it HERE) and I can fill you in. But really, this is a case of a smart person doing something dumb, as opposed to if I were just a permanently dim bulb.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

My brain is apparently as melty and gooey as the Langres cheese I had this weekend at my sweetie's (which I also posted about last year).

And best of all, (besides waiting for the other shoe to drop) I know that stress is bad for my already weakened immune system. Ironic, eh? "Be calm" etc. doesn't really help when you're waiting to see if you'll get a call from HR and if your other co-workers will figure out whodunnit. At least I've already had the closed-door-meeting-with-my-boss bright and early this morning.

My only sources of comfort are:
(a) perhaps they have bigger fish to fry,
(b) I hear there are now subsidized COBRA payments for the unemployed,
(c) maybe they won't figure out who the moron was
(d) I can't do anything about it now, as my assistant manager points out

Freakin' idiot

Tristate trifecta

So it occurs to me that I am now very behind in the news updates. Therefore, it seems only appropriate to start off with a photo of a 3 year old project (as my older greatnephew Thomas will be 3 on April 3rd -- incidentally, also the date of my next chemo, but more on THAT later

Yes, this blankie was one of my first major projects, completed with the assistance of my mom, who could not stand watching me slowly seam the squares together (she is very zippy in all things sewing). It is now in my younger greatnewphew Nicky's room at my sister's house, ready to be thrashed and drooled upon. Excellent! (Since it is made of Plymouth Encore and cotton backing, I have faith in its durability.)

So while I was at my sister's home in CT last weekend, having a lovely leisurely brunch with the other "kids" (2 of whom are married with children now, so child-free time with just the four of us is very precious, and thus, my post-1st-chemo request: they asked, and this was all I wanted) I took the opportunity to finally visit the LYS in Greenwich.

And a good thing I did too, as it turns out The Knitting Niche will be closing. Didn't know that's why they were having a 20% - 5% sale. I just thought it was end of winter clearance. So how could I resist 2 hanks of Elsebeth Lavold angora (91 yds/ea.) for a mere $5 per hank?! (I would have bought more, but they only had 2 left, darnit.)

I grabbed the yarn (the other ball is a deliciously soft Filatura Di Crosa Zarina Baby Print, also on sale for 20% off $9) and a pair of size 13 circulars to start on a fluffy scarf for my sweetie's friend Patty, whose 50th birthday dinner is here in Jersey City today. Since I knit tightly, and that defeats the purpose of supersoft yarn, I thought I'd go in the other direction and knit deliberately loose and lacy.

After several ripped out attempts/trials, I settled on a combination of stockinette, garter, and dropped stitch. And to fancy it up (it is, after all, the big 5-0) I decided to add a beaded fringe to each end, both to give a nice weight for when you wrap the scarf around your neck, and perhaps to eke out another inch of two (one more hank of angora would've been nice) from the finished 5 foot length.

What do you think? I couldn't decide which color beads to use (blue, green, or red), or where to place them (edge/fringe, or near each end), so my engineer suggested alternating blue and green beads, with alternating lengths. (Yes, I am one of the few women who regularly consults straight men for design tips. Not a great stylist am I.)

The avocado on the left here was simply lying around my sister's kitchen counter, and I thought it looked abstract, funny, and vaguely lewd, so of course, I snapped a shot. Heh.

And the crispy crunchy snacks on the right were my variation of a WW recipe. Using egg roll wrappers (less doughy, and therefore, less points), you dice up some Canadian bacon, cheese, and scallions, and bake them after a spritz of cooking spray in each side, or in my case, the olive oil mister. Flip halfway through at about 8 minutes and voila! Crunchy chewy snacks at 2 pts each.

You can bet I'll be trying variations thereof, especially since I now have an entire package of wrappers in the freezer.


Yes, I will be looking for all sorts of cooked food recipes, since I learned this week that I will be having not 6, but a total of EIGHT chemo treatments. Aaaaaahhhh!!! This brings my scheduled finish date from June 5th all the way to July 17th. Double aaaaaahhhh!!! So after a 3 week hiatus, my "5 or 6 weeks" of radiation treatments will start in August, and end somewhere in mid-September. AAAAHHHH!!!

So yeah, this will be My Year of Cancer. I will be living on CST: Cancer Standard Time, as one article in the New York Times so memorably put it. Pretty much, most of my year, and most of my thoughts revolve around cancer: treatment, side effects, restrictions, and other fun things.

Two of my friends will have 9 months of similar symptoms (weight gain, nausea, restricted diets) for pretty much the same dates, but they'll be getting plump little babies out of the deal. I'll merely be cancer free. (Not a small thing I know, but still, I think you see what I mean.)

My mom has also done the math, and after a further 5 years of tamoxifen, she now realizes: no more grandchildren are in her future. She is bummed, but gradually getting used to the idea. I reminded her: health first, kids can always be adopted (as my fabulous engineer was). So okay, we don't plan on kids, but I gotta give the woman a little bit of (false) hope, ya know?

I leave you all with a shot of the lovely tulips my nephew bought for me last weekend.

Family Time

Hey, it's been a whole week since my last post. Well, I did have the flu over the weekend, for the first time in 3 or 4 years (I guess they really meant it about the weakened immune system, huh?). That kinda wiped me out for a few days, and resulted in me taking Monday off from work.

At first I thought it was something I ate, but then when my whole body ached, and I was chilled, and then feverish, and then chilled, well...the little 25W bulb above my head did go off. I mean "food borne illness" as they call it, would (a) also result in the rest of my sister's family being ill (which they weren't), and (b) probably not result in me wearing 2 pairs of socks, corduroys, a shirt, a sweater, and a fleece jacket -- while curled up in a fetal position on my sister's couch under TWO blankets -- and still feeling cold.

I wonder if it was baby Nicky's cold I got? But even if it was, how could I be mad at my ridiculously cute younger great-nephew? I mean, look at that face!

Okay, more later. Lunch time is OVAH.

No! Not the grapefruit!

So I finally read my way through one of the patient education booklets from MSKCC while on my way work this morning (I do, after all, have 16 subway stops between me and the office), and according to Breast Cancer: A Road to a Healthier Lifestyle, I cannot have grapefruit while on tamoxifen...FIVE YEARS! AGH!!!

Maybe I can sneak in a few during the radiation treatment phase, if I don't start the tamoxifen during that portion yet...dunno...WAH!

But you know how as soon as someone tells you that you can't have/think of something, it becomes all you want to eat/think about? GRAPEFRUIT. And its relatives...the pumelo (I have 2 in my fridge I'll have to bequeath upon someone...)

So today I drown my sorrows in my leftover mango from yesterday (our undercounter pantry fridge is packed these days, despite the layoffs) and my giant glass jug of water (thank you, Bed Bath & Beyond...$7.99!) which holds 52 fl. oz. That should fulfill most of my daily requirements of 8 glasses.

Now while it's a general good health guideline, when on chemo, it is a directive, since it helps flush the chemicals out of your body. Likewise, an enzyme in the grapefruit somehow prevents the chemicals from exiting, so people on certain meds can never have it. Ever. (Oh the horror...) But...but... FIVE YEARS! Argh!

Okay, I am going to go sniffle now and wash my lunch dishes (homemade beef veggie soup w/ 7-grain bread). And when I say sniffle, I mean it: one of the odd side effects of CMF is that some of the olfactory cilia (i.e., nose hair) falls out, and this results in runny noses, even if you are not sick. (It also lowers your defenses against germs, but that's a whole 'nother issue.)

Time to go gnash my teeth on some salted plums or something. BAH! Feh! And phooey!

Pucker up

So today was unseasonably warm, delightfully so. I mean, is it normal to reach a high of 64 degrees on March 18th? In any case, this encouraged me to walk a bit during lunch, and also after work. (Well, the weather and the fact that my gorgeous new suits -- gifts received in October -- are becoming precariously tight, if not occasionally downright painfully uncomfortable. Bleh!)

Coincidentally, I have experienced a craving for tart/tangy/salty foods lately (and not just gooey, fudge-y cakes), so I combined the two (craving for bizarre foods + walking weather) for a stroll through Chinatown after work, stopping off at the venerable Kam Man Foods on Canal Street.

You see before you the partial results of my snack attack supply run: crystallized ginger, preserved kumquats with lemon, dried orange peel, and salted preserved plums. (I also bought pistachios and dried apricots, but you've all seen those before, so, no pic.)

Coincidentally, I am currently listening to Jackie Chan sing the theme song -- in Mandarin -- to a Jet Li movie while I type this. (Yes, Jackie is also a Cantopop star in Asia. Dig it, baby.) Clearly I have made a detour into the strange and random this evening.

Unfortunately, once inside Kam Man (and demonstrating why you should NEVER GO FOOD SHOPPING WHILE HUNGRY) I, er, also succumbed to something which I have forbidden my mother to ever give me, for I will eat the entire bag at a sitting: Calbee (Baked) Shrimp-Flavored Chips. As the ad for another brand says, an open bag is an empty bag. (*urp*) Welcome to tonight's dinner. And did I mention the Hostess cupcake I had for dessert? Many, many demerits for me.

I guess this completely counteracts my healthy eating for the rest of the day, such as the 7-grain bread with all-natural peanut butter which was my afternoon snack, the organic whole grain (frozen) waffle with maple syrup and Smart Balance ersatz butter which was breakfast, and the homemade chicken salad sandwich with a side of Stonyfield lowfat lemon yogurt for lunch, topped off with a gargantuan fruit salad from the street cart (whoops -- I only just realized that was a no-no. D'oh!) which you see in part here -- I'd already picked off all of the red fruits: seedless grapes, strawberries, watermelon.

Hmmm...a debate for the MSKCC dietitian: healthy foods prepared at a street cart -- yea or nay?

You are getting sleeeepy...

Poor mom -- she asked me to go visit last night to take care of some mail for her. Here is the exciting schedule of my visit:

5:30 - arrive
5:45 - nap
6:30 - dinner
7:30 - nap, until...
10:00 - give up and just go to sleep for the night until...
5:20 - "Hmmm...I can sleep for almost another 2 hours! YES!"
7:10 - alarm goes off

Such was the wild and zany evening I had last night.

Did I also mention that I had napped for 30 min. during lunch yesterday? We have a cot in an empty office which we use for invalids: chemo refugees, flu victims (don't worry -- the last one was weeks ago, so I shouldn't get anything)...

Tonight's main agenda items are (a) buying salted plums (see above) which help with nausea (you hear that pregnant lady friends?) and (b) 6pm info meeting for the NYC Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in October, held appropriately enough, at the Cancer Care building downtown.

Hopefully, I will remain awake enough to watch Dancing With the Stars afterward...ah, the little things in life.

And now, I leave you all with a little food porn in honor of St. Paddy's Day, brought to you by my boss (homemade soda bread muffins) and my coworker Mike's wife (that'd be Mrs. Hennessy to you all) with her famous soda bread -- we ask for it every year (we're shameless that way) and slather it with buuuuutter... mmmm....

Round The Clock

So this morning I was supposed to go see WATCHMEN with my friend Sam, during the 11:00am show, for we are cheap, and decline to pay $12 to see a movie, when we can pay $6 to see a weekend show which starts before 12:00. (AMC has this bargain matinee gimmick in Manhattan, but because it's become so popular, especially with the cratering of the economy, they've cut down the number of shows before noon, sometimes eliminating them altogether.)

But at 10:00am, I still felt like roadkill, so I called Sam, bailed, and promptly fell asleep for another 3 hours, resulting in a 12 hour round of snoozing. Yay!

This spectacular demonstration of lethargy is in direct contrast to the zippy boat ride photo sent to me by my sweetie last week. He was in one of these boats, taking a long tail boat tour on the river in Bangkok, when the driver of his boat got into a race with the driver of this boat. Considering the amount of traffic on the river, this thrilled him not at all, poor fella.

You can get a sense of the speed from this photo, and this You Tube video, and you can get a sense of the amount of traffic (!) from this You Tube video.

And now we bring you back to our regularly scheduled medical tours of me: no-no foods for the duration of chemo. Due to the interactions between the chemicals (i.e., targeted toxins coursing through your body, but toxins nonetheless) and various antioxidants, enzymes, and multivitamins, I have been instructed to basically eat like a pregnant woman (i.e., avoid all things which could make me sick) but hopefully without gaining the tonnage associated with pregnancy.

AVOID:

• raw sushi (noooo...not SUSHI!)
  
• deli salad bars
• grapefruit (oranges I can skip, but I love grapefruit!)
• multivitamins
• cranberry extract
• vitamins C, E, and B+ (folic acide)
• restaurant salads (homemade, by people you know, salads are OK)
• flaxseed
• pomegranate
• street food
• unpasteurized foods (mmm...raw cheeses...sigh)
• ibuprofen
• NSAIDs (Aleve, etc.)
• aspirin (Excedrin, etc.) -- only Tylenol is on my foreseeable future
  
• protein/granola basr with "soy protein isolate"
  (goodbye beloved Kashi bars! aloha Nutri-grain berry & nut bars! the Nutrigrain cereal bars, I hate anyway)
  

MINIMIZE:

• soy/tofu - scraps in say, an occasional order of tofu chow fun, is okay; an entree of braised bean curd = no
• 1 serving of wine/week, max
• dried cranberries
• red meat - an if any, then well done only
  

In short, any uninvited parasites which your body can normally shrug off is not such a simple case when your immunity is down. We'll see what the MSKCC dietitian has to say when I meet with her on Thursday. For all I know, there are ven MORE contraband items. And then of course, I haven't even finished reading the MSKCC pamphlets, and have to re-read some other breast cancer nutrition ones from God's Love We Deliver.

But right now, I can't believe that I am so exhausted that I am going to go back to bed. I've been awake for all of 2 hours!

To The Left, To The Left

Boy, do I hate that Beyonce song, but I gotta admit, it's sort of appropriate, since last night was the first time since LAST YEAR that I was able to sleep on my left side. As I am a side sleeper, the past few months have been rather restrictive in terms of sleep positions. I've even resorted to [gasp!] sleeping on my back.

Of course, this new change was perhaps related to the fact that I got up FOUR times during the night to go, er, powder my nose. Apparently my kidneys were working overtime to get rid of the many chemicals coursing through my body, so I finally gave up trying to sleep around 6:30am.

Yesterday's CMF chemotherapy cocktail consisted of:

1. cyclophosphamide, a/k/a Cytoxan
   
2. methotrexate, a/k/a Mexate
   
3. fluorouracil ("5-FU" or 5-fluorouracil), a/k/a Adrucil
   

There is a bewildering variety of methods and schedules for administering CMF, but I am on "Schedule C" (if you follow the CMF link above, as opposed to the individual drug links) which consists of one continuous IV dose every 3 weeks.

Mercifully, yesterday chemo nurse was wonderfully skilled in IV insertions, since it went into a vein on the top of my right hand (due to the lymph node biopsy, for the rest of my life, all blood pressure readings and any injections will have to be taken/done on my RIGHT side), and it could have thus hurt like hell. I [heart] her!



(By the way, the photo on the right is the Royal Orchid Sheraton in Bangkok, where my sweetie stayed last week. Spiffy looking, eh? He'll be staying somewhere else in Bangkok next week, on his way back. I miss him... but hope he's having a splendid time with his diving compadres in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand. He deserves his Calgon time! And now we leave the eye candy e-mailed to me by my engineer before he flew off to Ko Samui, and bring you back to our regularly scheduled medical mess.)

Just call me The Human Pincushion, since I've been poked at continuously since December, and will continue to be a target until July. Here's what my chemo Fridays will consist of, if yesterday was any gauge:

• 10:15 - check in at reception & get a blood test -- if my white blood cell counts are too low, treatment will be postponed; the blood techs poke the tip of your finger with a little pin, and not a use a hypodermic to get a vein, but this didn't really help since apparently the callous on my index finger made it hard to get the required amount of blood, and the tech squeezed my finger like a lemon (repeatedly!) in order to get enough blood...OW!!! If you think a tiny cut shouldn't hurt that much, YOU try squeezing blood out of one instead of staunching it.
  
• 10:30 - I meet with the oncologist (i.e., get called in and wait, while my sister flips through magazines in the waiting room) & get weighed -- I guess in the next visits we'll discuss blood test results, but the first week is a baseline meeting, since I haven't had my chemo-cocktail yet; she reviewed the results of my OncoType test with me, and tells me that my 16 score is on the high end of the low risk group (18 is the cutoff for the low risk category) -- Oooh! I forgot: I will part of a clinical study tracking chemo results! (i.e., my statistics will go into a vast pool of data) Yay for helping out other women!
  
• 11:20 - check in at the chemo desk -- like an a la carte restaurant, this initiates my "made to order meal" since the drugs are only drawn/ dispensed after you check in THERE, and the dosages are based on your weight, etc. I am informed the wait will be 45-60 min. My sister and I take the opportunity to dash outside and run errands: I go to a nearby library to grab an audiobook (no knitting, what with all of the needles) and she buys us sandwiches...thank gawd!
• 12:00 - check back in at the chemo desk -- no news as to ETA; we gobble down our lunches in the waiting area, along with lots of other patients.
• 12:45 - get called in to the chemo lounge -- that's what they call the set of little rooms where chemo is administered; each room has a sliding door, in case you want privacy, an easy chair, a visitor's chair, and a nurse's desk & chair
• 1:00 - the chemo nurse sets up the drip -- and pushes through the first 2 of the 3 drugs -- literally, she squeezes them down the IV tube -- but the 3rd drug is set to automatically drip in, along with a big ol' bag of saline [fluids, fuilds, and more fluids to help flush things through my system]; it's very funky to FEEL the cold medications flowing through my veins, I mean: have you ever FELT where your veins are INSIDE your body?!
• 2:30 - I'm done! -- my sister eventually gets someone to come and unhook me and we flee; we're so excited we leave without me remembering to pick up my anti-nausea meds (porchlorperazine, a/k/a Compazine -- also used as an anti-psychotic! bonus!) Whoops! BOY, was I sorry later that night in CT! Not gonna make THAT mistake next time. Went off to Duane Reade tonight and got them after my niece drove me back to the city.
• 3:00 - we hit the road and head for CT -- not surprisingly, I fall asleep in the car
  

Speaking of sleepy & done, I was going to include the mindbogglingly long list foods that are now VERBOTEN, but I am so pooped (and ITCHY -- damn, that's a side effect they didn't warn me about! ) that it will have to wait till tomorrow.

Hold That Thought

So today was my first chemo and it went okay. My sister (the fabulous looking woman you see here -- would you believe that she's in her late fifties in that photos? I thought not) came from CT to sit with me... from 10:00 to 3:00.

It being a bit late right now, I wil simply say that details will be forthcoming tomorrow, but just wanted to let y'all know I'm fine and currently ensconced in their lovely home in green, leafy Connecticut.

B the way, the window to my sister's right (the viewer's left) has since been renovated out of existence (heh) kinda like what we're aiming to do to any stray cancer cells.

Okay, ciao for now! More manana. Time for bed.