Chemo Therapy Round 2 – Cycle 1

01/22/2013:

7:15: I get up, and start to get ready.

7:30: I put some Honey Nut Cheerios in a cup and eat some.  I feel a little nauseated but its just a mental thing from having to face chemo again.

7:45: I put on my Lidocane Cream on my port and put Saran Wrap over the area so the Lidocane can soak into my skin and not get all over my shirt.

7:50: We lock up and head out.

7:53: We are in the car.

8:00: We park in the parking garage, not too many people here.

8:10: I check in at the front desk and am ask to take a seat with everyone else.  It seems that they only have on person checking people in.

8:25: They call 4 people at one time going to different small offices to check in and pay their co-pays etc.

8:30: They call me to check in.  We go over all my medical history and contacts.  I pay my $250 Co-Pay and am given a sheet to head up to the 5th floor and give it to the Charge Nurse at the Desk.  Room 523, oh joy.

8:35: I am shown to my room by my Nurse, Elise.  I start unpacking my laptops and getting settled in.  She needs to take my vitals so I briefly stop for that.

8:40: I get a call from the client who’s office I went to yesterday.  When he did the system restore, he restored the computer back to a point where he could log onto his local machine.  However, now today, when he tries to log on, he gets a trust relationship issue.  This the trust changed between the time that the system was restored to and today.  I remoted into his laptop and removed the laptop from the domain, and then restarted the computer.  I then remoted back into the computer and and added it back to the domain and restarted the laptop.  I then remoted back into it one final time, and was able to log into his laptop with no issues using his domain username and password.  Problem resolved.  I also checked a few things on the server and the server was in perfect health, no issues there.  It could have been a hung update from over the weekend.  The whole time that I am trying to help my client, a doctor, my nurse is trying to explain everything to me as well.  All this medical talk makes convos hard to follow, lol.

8:45: My wife head on out to work, she has to be there for 9:00.

9:10: I setup my office line to ring both my office and my hospital room at the same time.  Therefore those that don’t know that I am in the hospital can still talk to me directly.  I can answer the hospital phone and they will be talking to me as if I was at the office.  I also have an application on my laptop that I can make and receive phone calls for my office phone as well.  I am using this to screen the calls that are coming in with the caller ID that pops up on my screen as there is no caller ID on the Hospital Room phone.  I am just having everyone call my office that way I can monitor my incoming calls, and they don’t have to worry about learning another number.

9:20:  The Transporter is here to transport me to the Pulmonary Department for my breathing test.  Once at the Pulmonary Department she disappears off to her next Transport. This will be used to compare my results to my other Pulmonary Test back in 07/09/2012, post PET Scan and Pulmonary Test Monday,  same procedures as before, For all the test i would be breathing into a machine. The first test was a simple breathing test, breath in deep and exhale completely. I did this 3 times. Next the chamber door was closed, we had to wait 2 minutes for my body to warm up the chamber so that we could begin the test. I was told to pant and then after some panting the air flow was cutoff to measure my resistance of breathing in and out. After 3 of these test, the chamber was then opened and my next test began. This test was a medium speed test where I would suck in as much air as possible and then blow out as long as possible, and then suck in again. We this test twice. The next test was to breath in and out deeply, then breathe in as quick and as fast and as deep as possible, hold it for 8 seconds, then breathe out quick and when told. Next we moved into another room where the first test was to breathe in as deep and as fast as possible and blow out as fast and as hard as possible, then breathe in again once we couldn’t exhale anymore. This was done 4 times. The final test was having to breathe in and out as hard as possible and as quick as possible like you were hyperventilating. We did this twice and then we were good to go.  Test 3 I would cough or catch of piece of flem when breathing out.  We did this test 8 times as they were not getting the results they wanted to see.  We’ll just have to see how they fair out.

10:15: The transporter comes and get’s me from the Pulmonary Unit and brings me over to the Nucleur Medicine Department.  They thought I was a no show since I was in Pulmonary at the same time I was schedule to be with them.  They pull my orders back up and prep me.  Bryan tries to stick me twice.  He cannot get a stick and the first one burns bad, and the second one he just can’t get a vein.  I tell him then that they usually call in the IV team because I am a hard stick.  He places a call into the IV team.

10:25: The IV Team still hasn’t responded to him, he places 4 more calls into the IV team.

10:35: The IV Team gets the call and calls him back.

10:40: The IV Team shows up.

10:45: The IV team gets the IV started in my left forearm.  Forearm, come on, that thing hurt like a @#%@#,  She couldn’t even get the needle in all the way because the vein she went into curves.  She holds it there for a while with just the plastic needle filled with blood to the top.  She pushes in and out and then the blood just stats coming out all over the place, all over my arm, her gloves the floor. She needs Bryan to put on a pair of gloves and help her because she needs to push the plastic IV in further so just the triangular tip is seen at the base of the skin.  This $@%! hurts!  She puts two piece of tape on me, an then starts to clean me up.  They then get blood return with no problem while flushing.

10:55: Bryan puts in the first half of the Radioactive Solution.  He is going to lunch and tells two other nurses that I got the injection at 10:55 and I need to get the next one at 11:15.

11:05: I am just sitting here…

11:15: They put in the second injection and then put me up on the table for my Nucleur Cardiology Tests.  They slide me back in position and then start taking images.  A nurse ask me if I would like a blanket over my legs, I tell her yes, as the room is freezing, and all those needle sticks didn’t help me.

12:00: My testing is done.  They call for a transporter to come get me to bring me back to my room.

12:10: The transporter arrives, checks my information and then wheels me to my room.

12:20: I get back to my room, and there is my breakfast, nice and cold.  The milk and juice is nice and arm.  Oh well into the trash they will go, I can’t take any chances with food not being the right temperature.

IMAG053712:25: Elise comes back in and get’s ready to start my port.  She cleans up the lidocane cream, and then cleans the area.  She then puts on her gloves and and sanitizes the area.  She then lines up the port and pushes the needle through my skin into the port.   I didn’t feel a thing.  The lidocane cream sitting for 3 hours sure has numbed up the site!  She gets a good blood return, and tapes the needle to my chest.

12:30: Lunch arrives.  She tells me she will get the needle in and then let me eat while she goes and gets lunch herself, and then she will return to finish up an get going when she gets back from lunch.

IMAG05471:00: She returns after lunch and hooks up the bag she brought with her full of some goodies.  She then runs the Zofran and the Decodran, an anti-nausea and steroid medicine.

2:00: Elise returns with another nurse to check the Cisplatin they are about to feed into me for 24 hours.

2:30: After checking everything, ensuring my blood return, taping down the port, setting the pumping speed, she starts the Cisplatin.

3:00: I am in full swing, I am completely using my two computers side by side and just doing some work.

3:30: Elise comes in and checks on me.  She ensures that I have a blood return and then let’s the pump keep pumping.

4:30: Elise comes in again and checks on me, again ensuring blood return.

IMAG05405:00: Supper arrives, yummy!  Salsburry Steak, Fried Cubed Potatoes, Zuchinni, A Cookie, Peach Cobbler, and Peach Encased in Jello.  Great Stuff.

5:30:  My dad checks to see if they want me to pick up anything from McDonalds.  I tell them sure, pick me up a McDouble.

6:00:  My parents show up with the food.  1) I don’t know if I can eat outside food if they are keeping track of how much.  2) The smells are throwing me off. 3) The I just ate, and not all that hungry.

7:30: Elise comes in introducing the nurses who are taking over for her.

IMAG05428:00: I get my mom’s new phone activated for her while sitting in the bed.

8:30: We play with tons of ringtones for her phone.

8:35: My wife arrives.

9:00: My parents prepare to leave, they need to go to Walgreens for medication for my mom.

10:00: I start updating my posts, and watching Gone in 60 Seconds Again.

11:59: Another day done with!

 

© Craig
CyberChimps