Chemo Number 5

For those that do not know I have to get 12 chemos in all. It's pretty much every other Tuesday as well. That's how they've been working out. I went in yesterday. Early. 8:45 a.m. I had trouble with the stupid port again. I don't like to bleed. I mean, this thing is meant to make it easier. Bah. She stabbed my port with the needle which hurt worse this time. Then she takes this syringe of saline and flushes it. They pull back on the syringe to make sure that blood comes out. That's called a blood return. She is gonna draw my blood this way and test it. Well no blood. Not a drop. I see an old man getting his blood drawn next to me, through his port and he's bleeding just fine. Great. So I have to go sit in this big chair and lay on this side, then that side, raise my arm, cough, etc. The nurse asks if I want her to pull it out and stick me again or just draw from my arm. I remember the last time they did this they stuck me again and had to draw from my arm anyway so I told her to just draw from my arm. My blood was slow in that too. Whatever. So I finally see the doc. My blood looks great. I still have a great red and white cell count and my iron was looking good too. Yeah :) I go back into one of the many chairs to get my chemo in. There are TONS of people there. Every chair is full. So I take the one open chair. I prefer to not be around so many people but eh. There was a nasty storm going on out the window while I waited for the nurses to mix my drugs. I love watching storms. One poor woman getting chemo across from me was scared. She was probably late 30's, early 40's. She had a cap on and no hair. I can't help but look at these people and wonder what cancer they have....what their diagnosis is. How can you? I am in a place where people very often die. I sit next to people every other week who may not make it. It's weird. Anyway, they finally get to me to do my chemo. They never did get a blood return. They are supposed to make sure they do....but they just could not get one. Well, they knew it was going in the right place because if not the saline injected into me would have made my skin start bulging out and stuff. So they asked the doc and he was sure it was fine so they just started the chemo with no blood return. I hope NEXT time they get one. I hate being stuck 100 times. It's getting old quick. I finally finished chemo. I started to sleep in the chair after awhile yesterday. It's boring. It's long. Soap operas were on and I just can't get interested in the Young and the Restless or Passions. I am so sorry to fans of that show and I know my mom loves those soaps. lol Y& R is too tiring for me. It's like sleepy. The music to the show is like a lullaby and makes me want to take a nap. Passions? Well it's weird. Witches and demons and people getting possessed. Nah. Too odd for me. I fell asleep. I was even dozing off while the nurse was pushing one of the drugs into my IV. There are two drugs that aren't dripped the regular way. The nurse has to sit there for a certain amount of time with a syringe and slowly push it in. One if blood red. That's an interesting drug. The one they say causes a lot of the bad symptoms. I did get tummy pains all day afterwards and a yucky taste in my mouth. That always happens. But I feel good today. No trouble to speak of. :)

From July 17th