08/02/2012:
10:00: I am awake. I wake my wife up as she has work in the morning, but she is not feeling good.
10:10: I get out of bed and I let Buster out.
10:30: My wife is still not feeling good and nauseated 🙁 Well she took care of me last week when I wasn’t feeling good, so I guess it’s my turn this week. Getting her a cold rag, some drink, but I am limited on what I can do since I cannot afford to get sick if she has something.
10:50: I call my wife’s work to let them know she isn’t feeling good and may be running a little late.
11:25: My wife still is not feeling good, she calls work and let’s them know she is not going to be in at all today. No calls or emails today for me, so I can stay home and take care of her this morning. Although if she does have the flu or something I cannot afford to catch it, so it’s time for me to keep some distance as my immune system is weakened from the Chemo. She is feeling a little better, so I will have to let her fend for herself.
12:00 I am on the computer updating my blog. I gotta get a shower soon as I need to get to the hospital for blood work to check my blood counts before I can be administered the next round of Chemo on Monday. So you may be asking what and why the blood work is done, well here is the answer:
Chemotherapy kills cancer cells and is a vital part of treatment. But in the process it also kills some important normal cells in the body. The most important of these are cells in your bone marrow which produce blood cells.
White blood cells or leucocytes are important for fighting infections in the body. Drugs used in chemotherapy can kill these cells and increase the chances of getting an infection.
Chemotherapy also kills platelet cells in marrow which are important to prevent bleeding from different parts of the body. If platelet counts fall, there is a risk that bleeding may occur.
Before each cycle of chemotherapy it is important to make sure that the numbers of white blood cells and platelets are acceptable. If not, it is often advisable to wait for them to rise to normal before administering another cycle of chemotherapy. It may be necessary to give some medicines that help the blood counts rise. Platelet or blood transfusions may be sometimes required.
Taken from: http://lymphoma.about.com/od/issuesduringtreatment/f/bloodtests.htm
12:40: Time for a shower and to get outta here and to EJGH. I’ll update you from my phone 😛
12:50: Out the shower.
12:55: Out the house.
1:05: I arrive at EGJH Yenni Treatment Center. What is it with people that can’t park and others that just sit in their cars in the parking lot blocking the small pathway to drive through to begin with. I finally have to pull around the car and manage to back into a spot.
1:10: I check in with the front desk and sent upstairs.
1:15: The nurse calls my name in the waiting room, and we are brought over to the infusion room.
1:30: Still waiting for them to find my chart so that they can take my blood. So much fun….. NOT!
1:35: They finally found the chart. Now I gotta wait for the nurse.
1:55: The nurse is prepping the blood draw cart.
2:05: They stick me once no blood. Right anticubital area. Not too painful.
2:10: The same nurse sticks me again, no blood. Left anticubital area. Not to painful either.
2:15: A new nurse tries to stick me. No luck, but very painful on my left arm. I feel weak and ask for an orange juice.
2:20: The IV team is coming over for another patient so they are going to use them to get my blood.
2:30: The IV team started another man’s IV and then turned her attention to me. Is started an IV in my left inner anticubital area and drew about 60ccs of blood, and then removed the IV and filled up the two tubes that the nurses were trying to fill with the normal butterfly needles.
2:37: I am outta there. 1.5 hours for 2 little tubes of blood, blah!
2:40: I am back to my van, and headed to the office.
2:50: I stop by McDonalds for two McDoubles. I have a McDonalds gift card, so no big deal 😛
3:00: I am in my office. I eat my McDoubles and start some admin work.
3:20: I am here updating the blog…
3:30: I get an email from a client with issues accessing an older computer system after a power outage. As in all cases. I ask the client to restart the server, and desktops of the older system before going out on site and that’s all that needed to happen.
3:45: I call a client who called me on my Chemo day with a virus on their computer. I am just getting back to this client 🙁 The said that their computer was infected with a virus and they couldn’t really use it. I will attempt to fix it tomorrow remotely when they are home, but if that doesn’t work, I will have to work on the computer in person at the shop.
3:55: I check on a computer that I had my wife pick up last week. It appears that the computer was affected by a lightning strike. It won’t power on, and the power light button stays lit. I will have to try to take it apart tomorrow for further analysis, but it appears to be a goner.
4:35: I get an email from a client needing a new account/email/ftp created. I remote into the server, create all the needed items, I test the items, then email the client back with all the info.
5:00: Done with that client’s request. I do billing for yesterday and email out the invoices.
5:30: I go across hall and make one final adjustment to the fax machines so that they only fax out on the first line and not try to fax out on the second line of the machines.
5:45: I bring a package that was delivered across the hall. It is replacement toners for a batch of 5 bad toners that I had received. I will bring one of these out to a client tomorrow.
5:55: I remove the battery from the lightning computer to see if a full reset will bring it back to life, otherwise the motherboard is dead.
6:00: I am walking out of the office. A neighbor in the building sees me and talks to me asks me how I am doing, and I update her on everything. I will also email her this blog as soon as I am done entering in my updates.
6:10: I am heading home.
6:25: I get home. There was some traffic on the way home on Causeway.
6:40: I start updating this blog again.
6:45: I am sending out that email.
7:00: Dinner is here. Mrs. Cindy, my grade school teacher, and our family friend, cooked supper for us tonight, and my parents went and picked it up.
7:30: I get away from the computer and eat. We have salad, pasta, mashed broccoli, chicken, and cake. Very good!!!
8:30: I am back in the Lazy-Boy, with the TV on, watching Burn Notice, and on my Dell mini Laptop.
9:00: The Mentalist is on. Just researching a few things while watching tv…
