Ric and I are at the David Lee Cancer Center now… I’m starting on my next four cycles of chemotherapy. Took massive doses of Decadron (a steroid) last night and early this morning to prevent an allergic reaction while taking Taxol today. Whenever I get this prescription filled I get just enough pills for the current treatment. I wondered to Ric why I don’t just get in one big bottle all that I’ll need until the treatment is finished… it would certainly be more convenient. Ric said this is a carefully regulated drug and they probably don’t want me to have extra lying around. And I said that it would be so much cheaper if I could get it all at once. And he said, “Sure, and you could retire on what you’d sell standing outside the YMCA!” Oooooh, that’s not nice.
Chemo started… always with a flush, then I received Zantac to protect my stomach… later I turned my head and felt a sort of dizziness, so asked what else I was getting. Benedryl, also to help avoid an allergic reaction. Must have been a big does, cause now I’m falling asleep. Awake again… here comes the Taxol… will start out very slowly… and monitor blood pressure carefully for the first hour.
First hour passed with no problems, so now the Taxol will be delivered “full speed ahead”… another hour or two to go. Ric and I go back and forth talking and reading. With every book I read, whenever I start a new chapter, I always look ahead to see how long it is… no matter whether it’s a book I’m not sure I want to finish reading or a book that is absolutely great… always gotta check the length of the chapter. I dunno… sometimes I just wonder why I do the things I do.
I’m hungry. Ric’s asleep. Next time, I’ll be by myself… gotta remember to bring some snacks and/or lunch… because this is a long treatment.
Velcro & The National Guard
I have a button to push if I need anything when the nurse is out of the room. Terry’s my nurse today. She was just in to check on me. Everything was perfectly fine… at the time. Seconds later the automatic blood pressure check starts. It pumps up, releases only slightly, pumps up again, releases only slightly again. Oh, this is beginning to hurt. Pumps up again, and it’s becoming a tourniquet! I push the button and Ric wakes up with a start and asks what’s happening. I said, “This thing’s just getting tighter and tighter.” Ric said, “Take it off!” Oh… it’s only Velcro. I pull it off, instead of continuing to just stare and it and wait for my arm to explode. At the same time Terry runs in and said the machine messed up. She’s followed by all the other nurses! And soon we’re all laughing.
I get along so well with the treatments that no one is used to me asking for or needing anything, so when I pushed the panic button, everyone came running. At least I know it works! But what an idiot… Velcro… just give it a tug and voila… instant release. (That’s the same stuff with which little Sophie’s shoes open and close.)
Ric said next time, ask him first, before I call in the National Guard.
“Cheers”… Where Everybody Knows Your Name
I know so many people at David Lee Cancer Center now… staff, nurses, patients. Gosh! Can it really be fun to go to chemo? Well, yes… it can. I was telling this to Ric… and he reminded me of when I first moved to Charleston 6 years ago… and would go places and never see anyone I knew… and sometimes lamented that no one knew my name. Now, I made friends before chemotherapy of course… but it’s pretty cool that one can continue to build friendships even under seemingly dire circumstances. There’s good in everything.
The Cookie Monster
Although I usually like to go to treatments by myself… it was fun for Ric and I to be together today. It was a new treatment today… so Ric likes to know how it will go… and make sure that I’ll be all right. We laughed a lot today. And it was good to share the experience. Ric also shared his sister’s homemade chocolate chip cookies with me. There are some advantages to receiving chemo… otherwise that little bag would have never come out in my presence! (Ric called me at home yesterday while he was on the air… and said there was the faint scent of chocolate in the studio… did I bring some of those cookies to work?)
Actually, Ric’s the most generous person I know… but when it comes to chocolate chip cookies…
Off to the Races!
I handwrote my journal entries for today while I was in the hospital, and before going to bed I was just going to handwrite one more entry… take an Ambien and go to bed, because I know I need my sleep, but I am so wired I can’t stand to write by hand because I can type so much faster, so I’ll retype my other entries tomorrow. I wasn’t this way earlier, but the longer I stay up the more wired and hyper I get. I’m thrilled that I’m not sick as usual after chemo. It’s usually all I can do to stay up to take my 8pm medicine, but now it’s 10:20 pm and I’m still wide, wide, wide awake… and I’ll take a pill for that in a minute, but first I just have to type. I know what’s causing this, but I can’t stop it. I usually take 4-8 mg of Decadron… but I took 20 mg at midnight and 20 more at 6 this morning, and then 4 more at 8 this evening. That last 4 must have sent me over the edge, cause I can’t stop talking. Ric and I were watching the news and I wanted to hear certain things but kept talking and giving my opinions even when I knew Ric was trying to hear what they were saying and even when I wanted to hear more, but I couldn’t stop. Ric’s eyes kept getting wider and wider… torn between trying to listen to the news, give his opinions on the news and what I was saying, and trying to keep from laughing at me. I just realized that when I type a lot of words incorrectly the spelling is correcting itself, well not every word, but many… I didn’t knkow that till now (see what I mean… not every word) because I’m typing even faster that ever and for the first time realized I don’t have to be perfectly perfect when I type, because this expensive computer is helping me out as I go. Who knew? Certainly not me… but I do now! Anyway… part of me wants to just stay up all night… and talk… and clean the house… and dance… and play the piano… heck, I’d even like to go for a walk… outside in the dark… hope some people still have their drapes open and lights on so I can look inside and see how their homes are decorated… come back home and finish painting the living room that our friend, Jay, has just finished priming all the walls… we don’t have the rest of the paint yet so I can’t (the “i” just got capitalized for me) so I couldn’t paint if I wanted to. Oh, I said I was torn between… here’s the between part… I know I need to get some sleep, cause I’m really excited about being able to go to work tomorrow… the day-after chemo… I haven’t been able to do that yet… but I can tomorrow because I’m not sick… but I need sleep… the part of my brain that’s still functioning reasonably knows that, but the hyped up on drugs – legal, prescribed drugs – me won’t let me oh my gosh I’m not e3ven making sense now and I don’t care I’ve got to stop typing but I can’t but I will… oh my this is the weirdest I’ve felt yet, what in the worl;d am I going to do? Get up out of this bed, take the sleeping pill and hope for a good night’s rest. Oh I might read for just a little while, I love (there went the I again… all by itself) to read. I’ll take the pill first, then that’ll force me to stop reading. Goodnight! I’ve never said goodnight to my jurnal before… I guess it was just one more reason to not have to stop yet…my fingers won’t stop… Is that some line out of a Steve Martin movie? I’ll correct all these typos tomorrow… no I won’t… it will be a record of the not-trying-to-be-perfect Jeanne. Who wants to be perfect anyway? I remember Leo Buscaglia once said he didn’t mind if people thought he was crazy, because that gave him tremendous latitude for his behavior. I like that! What fun you can have when you don’t care what people think! Never want to hurt people… just want to do what Ric said early in our relationship should be our motto for our relationship and our life… “Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like nobody’s watching!”
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