Saturday, March 7, 2009

w00t w00t....made it to Day 2



Good morning, dear reader.  I can well imagine that you are sitting down for your morning coffee, enjoying the flow of caffeine through veins (or in my case, getting some blood into the caffeine veins LMAO), and you're thinking to yourself "Day 2 is worthy of a w00t w00t?".  Sounds a little too celebratory, no?  Am I being a wee bit too chipper about 'making it to day 2'?  My response is this:  heck no!!!  I'll w00t w00t all day long today if needed.

Alas, I fear an explanation is needed.  I've given you some appetizer, but not any main course.  It's like giving you a bowl of sour cream, with no pyrogies.  (oh my, that was quite possibly the greatest segue of all time!!!)  Because the reality this morning, dear reader, is that this post is all about Cheemo.  This morning I vent my spleen, and get day one out of my system, which serves a double purpose in that it lets you know how day one actually went.  Without further ado, let us begin the journey.

Day one began with a tour of the chemo ward at the Cross.  It was a whirlwind tour...here's the water fountain, here's the bathroom, here's another bathroom, here's warm towels, and here's the chair where today, we're going to pump you full of drugs that will make you sick and bald.  Tour over, start the IV.  Meanwhile, I'm still admiring the water fountain.  It shoots out water AND ice!!  How brilliant is that!!

Ok, so....now we're firmly ensconced in the area where the chemo will be administered.  Privacy?  Bwahahahaha....what's that?  We are in a small area that have 6 other beds or chairs, with no dividers, nothing at all.  There we are....all together....machines beeping, drugs dripping, people sleeping, people snoring and me sending emails on my blackberry.

The three drugs that make up Dianne's chemo cocktail are all administered through the IV, but all done separately with a saline flush in between each one.  Before the drugs, she is given, via IV, an anti-nausea drug.  Dear reader, just image the drip of the IV, the flow of the drugs and the boredom of us (I can't imagine that you aren't bored by this time too!!), and you will have spent 3 to 3 1/2 hours with us in the ward.  Great, time to go home.

On the way out of the hospital, we stop by Wig Services.  We laugh at some of the wigs, trying to picture Dianne as a blonde, or with really black hair.  Oh, and the styles!!  For those of you that know Dianne, you know she is pretty low key...nothing flashy.  I suggested we go with a platinum blonde wig with a really outlandish style.  I got shot down.  Oh well.  We did find a wig that is very close to her present hair color and the style suits her.  So, we took it.  Nice thing is that we don't have to pay for the wig...we can just use it until done, then return it to Wig Services, along with a voluntary donation.  Excellent!! (I did a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure air guitar riff with that!!)

Now we're home.  So far all is well.  Dianne has tea with her sister, and relaxes.  For less than 3 hours, she relaxed, feeling pretty good.  Then it started.  Not feeling well, stomach is a bit wonky....the smell of supper (which was very good by the way, Henrietta!!) was enough to send her to the far end of the house where the smell hadn't reached yet.    And it was all downhill from there.  Twice within the next few hours she was sick.  So, according to instructions, we call the Cross.  We get the advice to try Gravol as an anti-nausea rather than the designer drugs she had tried (twice she tried them, twice she was sick....I blame the hoity-toity drugs!!!).

After a 10PM run to Shoppers Drug Mart, the new anti-nausea med is administered, and Dianne very slowly starts to not feel as horrible.  She sleeps fairly decent throughout the night (no more sick!!), and actually feels well enough in the morning to get up with the kids and feed them and all that stuff.

And that, dear reader is worthy of a hearty w00t w00t. As of this writing, Dianne is resting comfortably on the couch.  She is very tired, but not sick.  We can handle tired, but when the thought of food makes her physically ill, that gets tough.  So, we are working on getting through today, and not thinking about tomorrow too much.  We are on a day by day journey, and I thank you for joining us on this very brief stage of the trip.  Hopefully you'll come along for another ride....we enjoy the company.

Cheers and have a good day.

No comments:

Post a Comment