8:50 am
Waiting, reading emails from work -- Hi work! -- and discussing the pros and cons of various phone models with BiL4, who's also trying to stay connected with his work.
9:21 am
Checked back in and now waiting to see the oncologist. I gained my six pounds back over the past two weeks, and am back to 224. Weird.
Checked back in and now waiting to see the oncologist. I gained my six pounds back over the past two weeks, and am back to 224. Weird.
10:18 am
Well, that was the longest wait to see the doctor yet. I think it was about forty minutes between the time the nurse left and the oncologist came in. But the doc eventually showed, and cleared me to proceed. He also told me that my tumor markers are down so the expectation for next week's can is positive. Yay me. I also learned than I have exceptionally good blood pressure. Go figure. I'm not a complete disaster health-wise, after all.
In any case, now we wait for the chemo drugs to be delivered. (If "chemotherapy" isn't Greek or Latin for "interminable waiting" it should be.)
10:48 am
Still waiting for the drugs, but am being entertained by jokes a colleague at work is emailing me -- best so far: How many Germans does it take to change a light bulb? One, because Germans are very efficient but not very funny -- and some web surfing. The surfing led to an article about Will It Waffle?, a cookbook dedicated to recipes for putting unexpected foods into a waffle iron. As soon as I get my copy from the library, I'll definitely be trying the waffled spaghetti and meatballs.
11:30 am
The drugs have finally arrived, and they've started the Avastin. While she was hooking me up, the nurse, BiL4 and I had an interesting conversation about PPE (personal protection equipment). The nurse was explaining that she wasn't gowning for the Avastin, but would be with the changeover, as Avastin wasn't chemo. I noted that, interestingly, none of my prior nurses had gowned or masked at all. As from wearing latex gloves, they skipped the PPE entirely. Turns out it's a fertility thing. Today's nurse is young enough to have parenthood ahead of her while my prior nurses were past their baby days, so she's more concerned about the potential risks associated with handling the chemo drugs.
But she then mentioned that GHC was changing the rules and all nurses would soon be required to use gowns and masks when administering chemo. Apparently, this was not a popular policy change, but with what I know about the healthcare industry, I'm actually surprised this was left to personal discretion.
Well, that was the longest wait to see the doctor yet. I think it was about forty minutes between the time the nurse left and the oncologist came in. But the doc eventually showed, and cleared me to proceed. He also told me that my tumor markers are down so the expectation for next week's can is positive. Yay me. I also learned than I have exceptionally good blood pressure. Go figure. I'm not a complete disaster health-wise, after all.
In any case, now we wait for the chemo drugs to be delivered. (If "chemotherapy" isn't Greek or Latin for "interminable waiting" it should be.)
10:48 am
Still waiting for the drugs, but am being entertained by jokes a colleague at work is emailing me -- best so far: How many Germans does it take to change a light bulb? One, because Germans are very efficient but not very funny -- and some web surfing. The surfing led to an article about Will It Waffle?, a cookbook dedicated to recipes for putting unexpected foods into a waffle iron. As soon as I get my copy from the library, I'll definitely be trying the waffled spaghetti and meatballs.
11:30 am
The drugs have finally arrived, and they've started the Avastin. While she was hooking me up, the nurse, BiL4 and I had an interesting conversation about PPE (personal protection equipment). The nurse was explaining that she wasn't gowning for the Avastin, but would be with the changeover, as Avastin wasn't chemo. I noted that, interestingly, none of my prior nurses had gowned or masked at all. As from wearing latex gloves, they skipped the PPE entirely. Turns out it's a fertility thing. Today's nurse is young enough to have parenthood ahead of her while my prior nurses were past their baby days, so she's more concerned about the potential risks associated with handling the chemo drugs.
But she then mentioned that GHC was changing the rules and all nurses would soon be required to use gowns and masks when administering chemo. Apparently, this was not a popular policy change, but with what I know about the healthcare industry, I'm actually surprised this was left to personal discretion.
And in the time it's taken me to write this, the drug-induced headache has begun. Sigh...
11:45 am to 12:45 pm
Spent an hour dealing with the GHC network, which decided to evict me. Tried turning the network connection on and off. Restarted the computer. Tried IE in place of Chrome (which goes to show how desperate I was). But no dice. GHC requires confirmation that you agree to their network policies before it'll connect you to the Internet and I couldn't figure out how to get it to throw up the agreement page so I could reconfirm my agreement.
Frankly, it was like being at work, but with the added feature of a chemo-induced headache.
And eventually, also like being at work, after an hour of screwing with it I shut down my computer and turned to other things.
1:15 pm
Opened my laptop to do some work and found that the network is back. Whatever.
We're now halfway through the chemo infusion, with another two hours (give or take) to go. Decided to take a gamble and send my directionally-challenged BiL to Dick's for burgers and fries. It's eight blocks directly west, but there's the GHC complex, a large city park, and the intersection of Seattle's conflicting street grids** standing between here and there. I fear the burger may not be the freshest in the world when it arrives. (But thanks!, B., for going after them. I'll certainly take a lukewarm burger over starving any day.)
Another good joke from the intervening hours:
Want to hear a word I just made up? "Plagiarism"
1:37 pm
A quick symptom update. The headache has strengthened with a vengeance, so I've just ordered Tylenol. (My RN friends are going to tell me I was an idiot for not asking for at the start of the session. It's a fair point.) The weird metallic taste in my mouth has started, which means the week without ice has officially started. There's some increased stiffness to my fingers, which means this will likely be another week of neuropathy, though no pain as of yet (of course I'm not holding anything cold).
Elapsed time for the burger run so far: 27 minutes.
1:50 pm
The burgers have arrived -- elapsed time: 35 minutes -- and they were delicious. I'm not sure a professional delivery service would've done much better. Thanks again, BiL4!
2:12 pm
The chemo infusions are done. Now it's just waiting for the pump to arrive, so I can be hooked up for the 48 hour 5-FU. And since that process always runs fast once it starts, I'm going to call this Cycle 4 liveblog over (unless, of course, something goes sideways and we're still here forty-five minutes form now).
11:45 am to 12:45 pm
Spent an hour dealing with the GHC network, which decided to evict me. Tried turning the network connection on and off. Restarted the computer. Tried IE in place of Chrome (which goes to show how desperate I was). But no dice. GHC requires confirmation that you agree to their network policies before it'll connect you to the Internet and I couldn't figure out how to get it to throw up the agreement page so I could reconfirm my agreement.
Frankly, it was like being at work, but with the added feature of a chemo-induced headache.
And eventually, also like being at work, after an hour of screwing with it I shut down my computer and turned to other things.
1:15 pm
Opened my laptop to do some work and found that the network is back. Whatever.
We're now halfway through the chemo infusion, with another two hours (give or take) to go. Decided to take a gamble and send my directionally-challenged BiL to Dick's for burgers and fries. It's eight blocks directly west, but there's the GHC complex, a large city park, and the intersection of Seattle's conflicting street grids** standing between here and there. I fear the burger may not be the freshest in the world when it arrives. (But thanks!, B., for going after them. I'll certainly take a lukewarm burger over starving any day.)
Another good joke from the intervening hours:
Want to hear a word I just made up? "Plagiarism"
1:37 pm
A quick symptom update. The headache has strengthened with a vengeance, so I've just ordered Tylenol. (My RN friends are going to tell me I was an idiot for not asking for at the start of the session. It's a fair point.) The weird metallic taste in my mouth has started, which means the week without ice has officially started. There's some increased stiffness to my fingers, which means this will likely be another week of neuropathy, though no pain as of yet (of course I'm not holding anything cold).
Elapsed time for the burger run so far: 27 minutes.
1:50 pm
The burgers have arrived -- elapsed time: 35 minutes -- and they were delicious. I'm not sure a professional delivery service would've done much better. Thanks again, BiL4!
2:12 pm
The chemo infusions are done. Now it's just waiting for the pump to arrive, so I can be hooked up for the 48 hour 5-FU. And since that process always runs fast once it starts, I'm going to call this Cycle 4 liveblog over (unless, of course, something goes sideways and we're still here forty-five minutes form now).
* You'd think that after almost thirty years of taking multiple shots a day, I'd be past the needle thing. You'd be wrong. I hate (hate, hate) when they put in IVs, draw blood, and connect the line to my chest port.
** The story the Seattle Underground Tour tells is that while one city father started laying out streets at the north end of town, another started at the south. One elected to organize his streets according to the compass directions, while the other elected to lay them out parallel or perpendicular to Puget Sound which does not run explicitly north-south. Eventually, the two grids came to intersect and as a result our city maps have lots of weird triangular blocks.
** The story the Seattle Underground Tour tells is that while one city father started laying out streets at the north end of town, another started at the south. One elected to organize his streets according to the compass directions, while the other elected to lay them out parallel or perpendicular to Puget Sound which does not run explicitly north-south. Eventually, the two grids came to intersect and as a result our city maps have lots of weird triangular blocks.
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