Saba Beats Cancer

Lee and I get a kick out of this.  It happens a lot. People come in the room and look at the empty bed and ask "where's the patient".  When I am sitting on the couch.  It happened when I checked in yesterday.  I got my stuff unpacked and sat on the couch and started reading, set up the computer, got the crosswords out and my water glass (they give you tiny cups that don't work for me) and the nurse came in and looked around and started to look in the bathroom for the patient. It happened on my walk this morning.  Y'all know I have just a bit of an ego and like to know I am tops at the fighting cancer thing.  And I never see anyone else walking the halls with their fuckers.  I just figured they are walking somewhere else. But I went up the elevator with a doc and she said she has worked here close to 20 years and never had a patient take their IV stand and go walk the halls to get a work out in. Not once. I get a lot of "god bless and keep going" in...

Yep - day 3 blahs again. Trying some new meds for the nausea. Handling OK but just not a great day. Finally got some sleep which is good. Doing some work and got the beach house - so spread the word.  We want to get it rented to help offset costs etc. We already have our first renter for July 4th week which is awesome. So will cut it short today. Know I only have two more days and things will start getting better.  Just have to embrace the suck and move forward.  It's hurting the cancer worse than it's hurting me.

So I registered a 0.15 this morning when I need to be 0.10 MTX in my system to go home.  So they won't cut me loose quite yet. One last round of pumping stuff into me and a blood test after lunch to hopefully show that I am at or below 0.10 and I can go home. Really need to get out of here. A little nausea today so we got the shot for that. A little worn out. But we also need to get the spinal before we go since that is due today. So many drugs so little time.  So they are working that into the schedule. So I am not getting out of here early or anything but outta here is definitely a plus. That way we can stay on track for a return on Friday for Round #3 R-EPOCH.  I figure there are actually 11 total rounds - 6 R-EPOCH and 5 MTX - total 11 (keeps the Spinal Tap theme as well).  So we are 2 down 9 to go. Most of the rest of the hair on my head stayed on the pillow this morning. So the baldness is almost complete at least on my head.  Feels odd - not too c...

Not easy to clock 1.5 miles walking the hallways but I don't want blood thinners and I want the MTX out so I can get outta here.  So we walk.  I am at a score of 1.5 MTX in my system after 24 hours which is good but not 0.1 - that's what I need to leave.  No one will estimate the timing because everyone is so different and they don't want to disappoint you.  So drink a lot, walk, pee - repeat.  They also pump an anti MTX drug and some potassium because I was low.  I ordered a banana with breakfast but they were out of bananas but they have plenty of pills. More irony. In many ways we didn't have much time to dwell on the fact I have a very bad cancer. We had to move fast and knew we had to stay positive to kick it and we know we are good at that.  But every once in a while it really hits you with the gravity of the situation and losing the hair and sitting in line at the barber shop was one of those times when you just get overcome with the emotion o...

It was the worst of times. All in one day. Started out feeling great. Walked the pups, nice breakfast, got a lot of work done. Felt so good to work and get stuff done. Then I got ready to go for blood work and spinal tap and started to feel a little nauseous. Then the pain in the back of my head returned with a vengeance.  Then the pain in my hip.  Got the blood work done. And just started dragging. Luckily brought an anti-nausea pill with me. So of course things will work out at the hospital and I will get out of there quickly. Nope. The blood people didn't do the one test they needed to release the chemo for my spine. So they had to re-do the test. But of course pharmacy got backed up so it took another hour to mix the special spine potion. Finally - it arrives and all goes smoothly. As I feel worse and worse. Driving home I am plotting exactly how I am going to hurl from the car without dying or falling out the window (luckily these are skills we mastered first year a...

On the nausea front - just a hideous day - tried zolfram followed by composin but neither really worked.  Nurse says to try ginger ale and remember a guy on a forum saying it saved his butt and he actually wrote to the company telling him that ginger ale probably saved his life.  So, what the heck - sugar be damned - give me the ginger ale. And it worked.  Felt good in about an hour. So the combination of all the anti-nausea stuff works. Was finally able to eat.  Lee had brought my go to - a Trader Joe's crunchy no salt almond butter and raspberry sandwich on Dave's bread. So perfect for this occasion. Also, the timing of everything meant I actually got some good sleep last night - crazy. They came in to get blood at midnight and I was so out of it, I couldn't tell her my name and birth date when she asked. All the blood work came back good - so nothing there to hold up discharge. The nurse made sure they came at midnight instead of the usual 4:00 am so they coul...

So much fun.  I was warned and did get more anti-nausea but main not fun today. Only had an apple so far so not much writing today. BUT I get out of the hospital tomorrow. Last set of bags should finish at 8:00 AM, have one more bag and we are out of here!! Until Monday - they I have to come back for the quick hit chemo for three days in the hospital again. Lee passed the dressing test - so she can flush my port lines and change the dressing on the port so we don't have to come back for that.  She did awesome. Christine and Lee are going to give blood since we get a blood discount if we are replenishing the stock as we use it - so that's helpful. Just ready to be home, sleep undisturbed, smell non-hospital smells, have the puppies around and keep things moving.

Actually doing ok sleeping right now.  There is a lot less pain in my bones which actually makes it easier to sleep.  And the drugs are not doing anything to me that bad.  So we started with the Rituxan and the build up the dosage. One of the common side effects is you might get chilled.  Yeah - I got that.  It was like someone through me outside in Chicago with no clothes - I was shaking like crazy - they had to get hot blankets and warm me up. Didn't hurt or anything - just so weird.  Once the body got used to it - they jacked the amount more and we finished up last night. Then they strapped on the other chemicals to my cart.  I have nicknamed the cart Fucker because he really is. Such a pain in the ass. They leave it plugged in the whole 5 days to reduce infection chances which does make sense. So here are all the chems dripping in now. The four horsemen of LIFE!! I went down to coffee and another patient looked at me like I was nuts running ...