Sep. 2: Chemo #14 and more

I had chemo on Tuesday, and it went pretty much like all the others before it. Victor was my chemo buddy. The funnest (to use Fancy Lori’s favorite adjective) part was when we both got Battleship off iTunes and played a couple Bluetooth rounds on our phones. Fortunately, there were only two other patients in the room most the day, because there was much making of bombing sounds coming from our corner. You know what’s cool about Battleship? If you’re winning, it’s a skill game. When you’re losing, it’s a game of luck, of which Victor apparently has none.

There was one exceptional difference at this chemo: I found out I only have two treatments left! That’s the plan, anyway.

I’ll have #15 on September 21 and then #16 on October 12. Sometime after that we’ll do another PET scan and make sure OJ is good ‘n gone. If he’s still hanging out, I suppose we’ll have a new course of action. If not, I don’t know if I’ll officially be in remission or if that pronouncement comes later. We shall see.

After I finished in the chemo room, I went across the street to the hospital for my procedure in radiology. I got a shot of steroid in my wrist that’s supposed to take away the pain I’ve had in my left hand. The whole thing was quite fascinating. They X-rayed my wrist, injected the spot with lidocaine and when I was fairly numb, injected the steroid, X-raying throughout. The radiologist said it would take three or four days for the effects to really show, so it’s not surprising that my hand is still hurting—but already the pain is somewhat better. Yay! I’ll be curious to see how long the effects last. In the meantime, I’m trying to be careful to change habits that could be causing a repetitive stress injury; we don’t know if that’s what this pain is from, but it can’t hurt to change the way I hold my phone and steering wheel, right?

Somehow I forgot that the night of chemo, I can never fall asleep. It was nearly 3 a.m. when I finally remembered and got up to take Benadryl. Duh. I woke up yesterday morning feeling quite exhausted and planned to nap later. Of course, I was going on post-chemo high energy all day and never felt like napping. I’m starting to come down from that today and by late this afternoon I think I’ll be ready for a nice, long sleep. The worst part of not sleeping well for a few days—whether I’m running on post-chemo energy or not—is that I start getting terrible muscular and joint pain. This girl needs her rest!

Well, between medical procedures and much folding of PTO-related things, I’ve been busy this week. Things will get worse before they get better though (with PTO, anyway) so I’m not complaining YET.

The best medical-like news of the week: Loveliest Lori is finally out of ICU! She’s still got a long way to go, but we’re happy about this change. So, so happy.

Toodles.