Second Hand Chemo

This is the excuse my husband blurted out in the middle of my medical exam today when he realized he had misspoken about something. I thought I was going to wet my pants I was laughing so hard. He's been exposed to second hand chemo. This would make a great t-shirt for caregivers I think. Too funny.

Treatment went very well today. My labs came back great again today, so no Nulasta which is great. They did change my calcium treatment from Aredia to Zometa, which PJ and I decided sounded like the name of someones house keeper in NY. No different side effects than what I had before, and the treatment is not as long, 30 minutes in lieu of an hour and 1/2 - so that's good too. We went ahead and scheduled my CT scan for Tues of next week around 10 am. I will have the results from my dr the following morning. So please, send good thoughts and prayers. All in all, my treatment went great today, but I found the day just off a bit. And I think I know why.

I had overheard one of my nurses talking to someone next to me that she and her husband were from NYC and that they most likely were going to move back there eventually. Something PJ and I had talked about before this whole cancer thing - in our 5-10 year plan. Obviously, things have changed a bit. Anyway, when she came back, I asked her where she worked in the city and she said NYU - and then she asked where I had worked and I said the financial district and then she asked me if I was there on 9/11. As I am whenever I talk about this, it's like a sudden rush, right back to that day. We both exchanged our stories of our experiences that day in the city - and both were in tears at the end of the conversation. Very moving. She told me a story of a patient of hers with pancreatic cancer, very weak, very sick, not able to walk very well - see what was happening on TV, put on a robe and ran down the street to find his son who worked down at World Trade. Simply heartbreaking. I have similar images, much more vivid as I was right across the street from World Trade 1 & 2 when it all started, they too will never leave my mind. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was weird that we had this conversation because I just had put U2 on my ipod, All That You Can Leave Behind album, and I had just thought to myself that I hadn't gone to this album for comfort since 9/11 - then we had this conversation. Interesting.

Then, I shared my room today with a woman I had met before. She and her husband (or significant other I'm assuming they are married, they may not be) and we finally got to exchange our cancer stories. We are around the same age, I think I'm older by about 5 or so years, but our stories are similar, and different all at the same time. She was having a tough time w/ her treatment side effects today - and I just was overwhelmed with wanting to help her - to fix it - to just make her feel better. Her cancer has spread quite rapidly and she is on her 2nd round of medication to get it under control. She is on a clinical drug, that they discovered from a sea sponge - isn't that fascinating!!! This totally made me remember from The Shack (please, everyone must read this book) when Sarayu explained that God made cures for diseases hidden within his own creations - we just needed to find them. I know this is where we will find these answers, I just know it. Anyway, I was extremely moved by her story, which I won't go into detail - because I don't know her that well and have given her my blog address, I wouldn't want to make her feel uncomfortable - but I was very moved and overwhelmed by her. She's all I've thought about since we left. As I sat there today, watching her deal with this reaction to the treatment, I literally just prayed, right there in front of her, for God to bring her peace and comfort and calm so she could accept the drug and get through the rest of the treatment. This was a very strange thing for me to do - as I feel religious practices are a very private matter, but I just felt it was all I could do for her. I hope it didn't make her feel too awkward, I never want to creep anyone out by doing something like this, I know there was a time, not too long ago where I would have been weirded out by it - I just felt I needed to help her and this was all I could do. Don't get me wrong, I didn't stand up and wave my hands around and yell out some prayer in tongues or anything, not THIS time (kidding) I stayed quietly in my bark-a-lounger, bowed my head and prayed for her. I felt like no one was paying attention to her. (actually we have the same Dr and she was very attentive to her) I feel like I'm rambling here - I'm just overwhelmed with concern for her. Please, keep her in her prayers those of you who pray - she could use them. I'm not using her name here intentionally, God know who she is.

So - I didn't get to sleep at all during my treatment, but we were out of there by 2:30 - can you believe it!! It was awesome. And, we found out I don't need to go in for labs on my off weeks - that was only for the trial, so my off weeks will REALLY be off weeks. I need to work on myself mentally for my off weeks - because I get kind of antsy and depressed - feel like I'm not doing anything to fight this thing. Good thing it will be July 4th and I'll have a house full of family next weekend. That will make me smile.

The dogs are getting along great - once they finally fought over who was going to sleep where, it ended up being on me - but that's ok. This morning I woke up to one under the covers with me, one on top of the covers with me, my husband at my side and Madeline almost dangling on the edge next to him. Well, it cozy.

Goodnight all, and God Bless.