07/18/2012:
12:30: After relaxing and almost falling asleep a few times, I get out. I get dressed. My wife then called me asking me to unlock the front door because it is pouring down rain along with much lightning. I unlock the front door, sort my dirty clothes, and then put the Thunder Blanket on Buster since he is shivering again because of the lightning and thunder. My wife comes home just as I am almost done putting on Buster’s Thunder Blanket. He is trying to run towards her while I am trying to hold him down so I can get the last 2 connections of velcro to secure it around him. I then wonder back to the bathroom to cleanse my face and head, and brush my teeth.
1:30: After talking to my wife for a little bit while she got her bath, I came into the Den, sat back in the Lazy-Boy and continue the final steps of the computer that I was working on earlier today. I just need to install Office and their CRM program, and then i can go to sleep! New temp: 99.8 checked by my wife.
3:00: I complete my work and fall straight asleep with no problems. I gotta be up for my Doctor’s appointment.
7:30: I wake up to Buster pawing at my right shoulder from the ground. Worst shoulder for him to be pawing at. I wake my wife up for her to let him outside because him pawing at me, means one thing in the morning, he’s gotta go. I grab my laptop check a few things on the computer from the previous night then doze back off.
9:00: I wake up again check a few things on the computer I was working on remotely and doze back off.
9:30: This time I am awake for good, I know I got my appointment in an hour. I remote into the client’s computer. Check a few final things, and run the final updates.
9:50: Time for me to get ready and dressed and outta here.
10:10: My wife and I leave the house headed for EJGH for my doctor’s appointment.
10:25: We get out the car in the parking garage.
10:27: I check in at the front desk.
10:30: I am given a stack of new patient paperwork to complete.
10:32: My mother and sister arrive at the office to accompany us to my appointment.
10:50: I finish up the paperwork and pay my $50 copay. I am waiting in the front waiting room now for to be seen.
11:00: Just sitting here thinking. Wondering how this second opinion and different doc/patient experience will play out. Nothing to do right now but sit here and think and wait and type messages for my fan base.
11:10: Still sitting here…
11:15: I am brought back to the patient room.
11:20: I am done normal temp, pulse, oxygen level stuff. Waiting on the doc…
11:25: The doc comes in and talks to us. He goes over everything. The 6 rounds which is 12 infusions of chemo. The chemo regimen will be ABVD. So it will be 6 months of treatment, a treatment every other week. Doesn’t look like I’ll have any rounds of radiation treatment. I will have another bone marrow biopsy to confirm that the other side of my body is negative as well.
11:50: Our basic Questions and Answer and Informative session is over. He is going to do a quick physical.
12:00: My physical is over, time for them to draw some blood.
12:05: The nurse arrives to draw my blood. The first stick is my left anti-cubical, the second stick is my right anti-cubical, the third stick is my right hand just by the knuckles. As soon as she said let’s try you hand for the next stick, I wanted to run out the room. I hate needles stuck on top my hand, they hurt the worst!!! They are no fun either. OUCH!!! That last one hurt as she stuck it in. Worse yet after all that pain she didn’t even hit it right! Then she started digging for the pain, ouch, ouch, I just wanted the pain to stop, screw the blood test. I’ll get it later, just stop the pain for now. I wasn’t looking at it or I would have been sure to pass out, but it sounds like they were blowing the vein because it looks like a marble was blasting up under my skin my wife said. OUCH! 🙁 I HATE NEEDLES.
12:15: So the doc comes to check on me, and see’s the problems the nurse is having and says, let’s access the port and use the port instead of keep sticking me. Great, I am all for this. She then pulls out the needles and wraps my hand. 🙁 At this point I am not feeling good. I am weak, a little nauseous and just want to sit still until it passes. I ask the nurse if she has something to drink. She says that they do have an orange juice, I told her I would take that, at this point I will take any liquid with sugar in it to help me feel a little better. Don’t know how, but this always works. So now I am thinking OK, the port should be alot simpler. But wait the port has been in only for about 5 full days. It is still painful for me to touch much-less someone else to touch and use force. So the doc goes and gets the needles needed to access the port and the tubing etc.
12:20: The doc comes back, The doc tries to access my port just by removing one hand from my shirt after finding the sterri strips are still on my skin over the port. I take off my shirt so he can access the sterri strips to peel off the port area. Now the fun begins. If you are a bit squeamish, I would suggest you skip down to the next time frame. He start pushing on the skin around the port to take off the sterri strips. OUCH. NOT very painful but on a scale of 10, it is a 3. The most fearful part is him taking off the sterri strips, worrying that he will open the wound up, and then I will have to worry about getting the wound patched up too. Yeah at this time I am probably worrying too much, but all this enters your mind while you are sitting there. After he is done getting the sterri strips off that he wants, he then uses some tubes of sterilization solution and rubs it in circles on the area. He then opens up his needles and prepares them. They they use some ethyl chloride which makes the skin very cold and numb. He then takes the needle and sticks it into the skin where the port is and pushes it down pretty good to he hears it click in the port. He then attempts to use the larger syringe tube to pull the flush that is in my port to my vein out so he can get to the blood to pull for the blood work. However as he pulls, he doesn’t have any luck moving the plunger backwards out of the syringe at all. He then figures ok, if i can’t pull anything out, let’s try flushing the port. However after he hooks up the saline syringe, he tries pushing the saline into the port with a pretty good amount of force, but that didn’t work either, ok, this is not good, now this is where my mind is starting to rush, and yes, I guess you can say I am getting a little anxious. He pulls back on the needle a little and pushes it back into the port to make sure that he is in the port completely, and i feel it pull out the port then I feel it click back in, so he is back in, and then he tries again with some additional force, and I can see his hands shaking a little from the amount of force he is trying to apply. Ok, this is enough for me, I am really starting to feel week and queasy now. I slip back on my chair a little. he asks if I am ok. I tell him, I am really starting to feel weak now. He decides it is best at this time to stop. I ask if I can lay down on the table, and he tells me that I can, and that I can take all the time I need to feel better before getting back up. I make it to the table lay back and still feeling queasy but at least I am laying back and have nothing to worry about because I can’t fall over or slip out of the chair or anything. I stay laying there for about 10 minutes while my wife just looks over me wishing she could do something to make me feel better. At this point, nothing could really make me feel better. After about 15 minutes I am able to sit up.
12:50 The doctor’s assistant comes in and asks how I am doing. She goes over a few additional things with us. She tells us the prescriptions will be sent to my CVS Pharmacy. She explains that there are nausea prescriptions, a prescription for me to take the first 5 days because the onset of the treatment can cause a high amount of acid in my system leading to gout, so this will prevent that. She also gives me a prescription for lidocaine/prilocaine cream for me to put on before my chemo treatments to minimize the pain of the needle being inserted through my skin into the port. After she gives me the run down of all this, she will call me with my Bone Marrow Biopsy appointment for Friday to check my other side. With that final bit of information, and me feeling better, we are free to go.
1:00: With a slow walk back to the car, we are on our way. We have decided that we will be going to Chilli’s for lunch, even though I am not that hungry.
1:15: We get to chilli’s, and are seated.
1:20: Our server comes to our table and starts to take our drink order.
1:25: She comes back to our table and I give her my 2 for $20 order.
1:35: She comes back to the table again and everyone else is ready. My wife gets the half ribs.
1:40: Our appetizer is delivered. The Cheese Texas Fries were good.
1:55: Our food arrives, well there’s does at least, mine is in it’s final stages of cooking.
1:57: My order arrives. The chicken fajitas are awesome! But then again to me, almost all food is awesome. I have 3 fajita’s and all three are delicious and now I am stuffed.
2:20: We leave the restaurant and set out to my client’s office to finish up some work.
2:35: We arrive at the client’s office and I try to make the microphone work, but for some reason the microphone’s special buttons won’t work. The device is about 10 years old and the third series is out with no way to download drivers for the outdated model.
3:15: I call it quits and call the client and asks if he has any extra mics. He says that he has one in his other office that he can bring to the office soon, and we can try it at a later time. I then walk into another office where another one of my client’s is and change some setting on their fax machine because they are having issues sending faxes. We’ll see if these changes fix things.
3:40: By this time it is too late to go to the bank on the way back to the office, so we just head to the office. I answer some emails and follow up on some admin work.
5:56: I call a client who has been trying to get me to do some remote support for him, for the past week. I remote into his computer. Setup his new wireless router, edit the security settings for the wireless on two laptops. I configure a wireless printer, then I configure the printer on a desktop and two laptops. I also configure the desktop to be able to receive scans of pictures and PDF documents. He also tells me if there is anything I need to let him know. Rides to and from work, anything!
8:00: We get off the phone, I go into the other room and wake up my wife who is sleeping in the other room, it’s time to go home, and I am starting to get cold which has been happening more lately at night.
8:30: We get into my wife’s car to go home.
8:40: We arrive home. It is lightning like crazy outside and about to storm. Buster greets us at the door with his thunder blanket on, which wasn’t on completely correct, and my wife had to redo the way it was on him. My wife finds me a flannel jacket out of our closet, because I am still cold. My wife and I eat some Chinese food. By this time it is getting really bad outside. Lightning and thundering like crazy, the lights flickering, and the sounds of huge concrete dominoes falling in sequence quickly down the street, or the sound of a train wreck with all the cars quickly running into each other. I then walk around and the house with Buster to try to calm him down.
10:00: I wasn’t feeling to good and was tired so I decided it best to just flop down in the lazy-boy. I updated my blog from earlier today.
10:25: My dad gets me some pomegranate drinks mixed with some blue berries.
10:35: My wife takes my temperature, it is 100.8.
10:40: Around my port is hurting when I move certain ways, probably because of it being accessed today and disturbing the healing tissue around it.
I am still finishing up the details of the blog for today.
11:15: Ok, I think I have updated you enough for today. I think I am going to take being tired as a sign to go to sleep early tonight. Just put the computer down and doze off in the couch. If I wake up for anything, I will as always let you know 🙂 My temperature is now 99.5 says my wife.
