One fourth DONE!

Yesterday went as smoothly as possible. My port's catheter seemed clogged at first, but the nurse got it flowing again. The Heparin (anti-clogging "juice" that's injected at the end of a treatment to help keep the catheter from clogging for the next treatment) must not have worked as well. Oh well, it still worked, although it was a little alarming because I was worried the port needle wasn't in the right place, and the chemo chemicals would go in the wrong place and burn my insides. The Adrimycin is so bad you would need reconstructive surgery if it got on your skin! Yikes! But luckily, the blood appeared as it should have and all was fine. Jamie and Leah came to visit, so that was nice, too. Leah brought me a big stack of magazines, too, which will come in handy this weekend.

This chemo treatment was a little more depressing than usual, though. I had to wait a little longer than usual for a couple of things, and it unfortunately gave me time to just stare at the syringes and bags of drugs sitting on the little table next to me. Looking at the port all hooked up to my chest, and watching the chemicals get pumped in was a little harder than usual to deal with, and I found myself tearing up a little at times, but I held it together and kept on reading Marta Stewart Living. I guess it's just hard to watch the drugs go in, knowing that they're basically trying to come as close to killing me without actually doing so; that these chemicals are actually going to keep me alive in the long run, but that I'm going to feel absolutely miserable this weekend and the upcoming week. This is definitely not what I had in mind for the summer after college graduation.

Usually I'll have my own little room at the Seattle clinic, and last time at Bellevue I was the only one there, but this time there were two other couples there. One old man was getting (what I think was) a blood transfusion. He seemed to be in good spirits, and he and his wife were really cute and obviously loved each other very much. They smiled and said goodbye to me as they left. There was also another older couple, but the wife was receiving treatment of some kind. I couldn't see her for awhile, but I could hear her talking: "If 911 comes, remember, I don't want to be resuscitated!" When I saw her, she didn't look that old, but I guess she was just so miserable she didn't care about living or dying, no matter her age. I tried to smile at her as I left, and I think I got somewhat of a smile in return. I hoped it helped her a little bit. I know that when the older couple left, and they smiled at me, it made me feel better. Every little bit of support, especially from other cancer patients, really helps.