It's amazing what a good bag of blood and friendship can do!

Yesterday was the longest I spent in the hospital yet (since this whole chemo business started).  I arrived at 7:30 a.m. to have an echocardiogram (to see if any of the meds have affected my "ejection fraction" of my heart....good news....everything is A-OK after 3 months of poisons....which means the intended "plan" will carry on without a hitch)....of course I was nervous, because that's just who I am.  Every once in a while the technician would turn on the volume and you could hear my thumper "boom booming" away at a pretty face "boom"....so needless to say I was glad to hear the results were good.

Then I had a few minutes to kill before I was to meet with Dr. Chemo.  I have to say that LGH has the best cafeteria among all the hospitals I've been to here, so I was looking forward to some "quiet time" and some good food.  Sure enough....they had a nice array of french toast, scrambled eggs, sausages, egg omelette (sp?), mixed fruit and what did I choose????....oatmeal....and tea.

Then I headed off to get a routine check-up, everything checked in except for my blood work...which we already knew.  It was time for a blood transfusion to pick up my levels and make me feel better.  So off I went to the laboratory to get some blood work and a cross match....that took 40 minutes and I was on a "stat" order....lol.  It's okay...I could hear others grumbling that they had been there for 2 hours!

Back down to the chemo ward to get hooked up for my day of poisons.  The nurse made the mistake of telling me that I was going to get the "big needle" because of the transfusion.  I told her...."please....don't tell me anything....just go ahead an do it".  I did have (in my opinion) the best nurse on the ward (I had her on Christmas Eve and she definitely knows her stuff) and as she's sticking the needle in my hand, I go on to tell her that I thought she was the best at doing this....that's when I started squirting.  She laughed and said that I "jinxed" it.  Apparently the tube connection was giving her grief and I'm not sure if I was squirting from the tube or if the needle had moved and I was squirting from my hand but....I was making a mess on the floor and table top.  So I had to help her by pressing down on my vein while she "corrected" things.  Now we were all hooked up for the usual "baggies".  My blood bag came at the end.

It's amazing how red and thick a bag of blood really is....and it didn't want to get pumped into me for some reason, so after 1 1/2 hours and only 1/4 of the unit gone...we had to make some adjustments to how my hand was situated and that seemed to get the blood flowing....and my temperature and blood pressure.  After a couple of readings though, we discovered that the reason my temperature was probably going up was the fact that I was drinking hot tea (they take readings from your mouth) and while my bp was just "high"...I was making it higher because I was freaking out.  So they stopped the transfusion just before the end and let me "settle down"....I had a few sips of water and everything came back "normal"....I'm such a difficult patient.

We finally came home at just after 5.  I was pleasantly surprised with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my bud....definitely brought a smile to my face.

And today....the "original oompa" had impeccable timing and brought me a yummy sandwhich and chocolate ganache 15 minutes before I was allowed to eat again....and I was starving!  It was perfect.

I've just come back from my Neulasta injection and can already feel the slight twinges, but I'm hoping it's not going to get too crazy.

I slept in until 10 today (after going to bed at 10 last night) and managed to just do small things.  Don't worry Erik...I really am "taking it easy"....I just get a little crazy the weekend before each treatment but I haven't had the energy to even that.  Movies and enjoying my kids....that's what life is about!

One more to go and I cannot wait till this hair starts growing back!