Small Glitch

I woke up today feeling good. It was early (6:30 am) so being anxious to get up and looking good for the roving chemo team I bounded with my tower to the bathroom to freshen up. I felt so good after that I did some of my Pilates mat exercises on the bed, followed by the light leg work I do with ankle weights for my operated leg.

Team came around....liked how well I looked and declared me fit to go home at 6pm when chemo is completed....yay!

Half an hour later comes a glitch. It seems that my hemoglobin level is at 7.7 and is supposed to be at least 11.7-13.7 so blood transfusions are necessary before I can leave.
I was of course so disappointed, as they were unclear as to whether I could receive the blood with the Chemo which could have kept me here an additional four hours tonight after 6pm.....do the math!

Happily I can report they are transfusing me as I type and will be blood fortified by 4pm so I Can depart this evening as scheduled.

I must confess, I did have to hold back a few tears when I thought I was going to be held here late into the night. Even Virgo Warriors start to hit the wall every now and then during such a big adventure! Rest assured, I am back and ready two roar :)

Finally!

The Liquid Plumber worked and my last Chemo treatment seemed to be going for once close to schedule.

My nurse, Leslie, who has been awesome came to my room as the pre-Chemo hydration liquids were running dry to say that the pharmacy had not sent up my Adriamycin and Cisplatin cocktail. In the midst of this a short black out occurred and left me with a flashing digital wall clock and a TV that will not reset itself! At least the pump on my tower stayed functional!

At 6:45 my drugs came through and by 7pm I officially began my final dance with the crystal tower!

Clock is still flashing and TV is not working, but I have my IPad, so....
Life Is Good ; )

Got A Bed!

The good news is that I was called before lunch time and informed that there was a bed for me!

My friend, Donna, was able to give me a ride as Paul had meetings already scheduled today so getting me back to Moffitt was going to be a big problem. Nothing comes easy with this cancer dance and trying to maintain a normal life schedule.

Check in at admissions totally uneventful and the room was ready as soon as I got to the fifth floor.....yippee!!!!

Of course I should have known it was going too smoothly and something was bound to occur.

I developed a little clot in my port and so when they tried to access it no blood flow would come out. Two nurses looked at it and decided the port needed to have Heprin injected into it to dissolve the clot....makes me think of Liquid Plumber. So this takes an hour to work which means my Chemo cannot begin until this problem is resolved.

Nurses Needed ....

So we are driving home from Moffitt because they could not admit me!

After waiting an extra two hours to see Dr. Conley (that was how behind the Sarcoma unit was running) we went to admissions expecting to get me in a bed and get started on the Chemo.  

Not to be!
 
It seems that they are so short staffed with nurses that it was absolutely impossible to get me in.  Amazing huh?
The hope is that they will be able to get me in tomorrow afternoon.
 
It was so ironic that this occurred, because we had just wrestled with whether to wait one more week for my Chemo or go for it.  My doctor felt my water retention issue was not serious enough to force me to wait......I was so ready to go for it.
 
So stay tuned friends!

My Feet Are Swollen :(

Tomorrow I return to Moffitt for my last round of chemotherapy, and I am ready to go!

I had some worries over the weekend concerning some strange changes in my body that crept in making me wonder if the Chemo treatments are causing damage.

My feet and ankles became swollen and I had a weight gain of three pounds over a couple of days. Wish that I could claim indulgence for the weight, but not the case. Since kidney damage is a known possible side effect from the Chemo cocktails, my mind went immediately there. Paul and I emailed Dr. Conley on Saturday afternoon and he replied by saying we will discuss the situation on Tuesday (tomorrow) when we meet before my scheduled last round.

The good news is that today my swelling is gone and two of the pounds have disappeared when I weighed in. I am hopeful that it was just a reaction that commonly does occur and treatment will go as planned.....I am ready to get this chapter completed.

The next time I blog I will have the answer and so shall all of you  : )

"Come Out of the Dark, Come Into the Light" - The Wizzard of Oz

Yesterday/Wednesday
a pretty typical day doing my chemo. The fun part was being greeted by nurses who remember me with a hug and a smile....best medicine for me!

The night before, Tuesday, I had a visitor nurse knock on my door so that she could introduce herself. She was so kind to share that she had been observing me on the floor during my past two rounds cruising around with my tower and my very cute hair look I have going on. She wanted to compliment me on my upbeat upkeep! You know that made my day!

It is true that a majority of the patients up here on 5-N tend to stay in their room and when and if they come out at all it is for a few moments and they are not particularly "pulled together".

I had to push yesterday and give myself a big attitude check so as not to lose my warrior spirit. The extreme snafus in checking in on Tuesday created a situation where by my chemo will not end by 6pm and now is looking like 8:45pm. It is very difficult to wrap my head around the comedy of errors in the pharmacy which results in holding me hostage an almost three additional hours. Needless to say, I was major bummed.

I occupied myself with walking/dragging my tower partner around the whole fifth floor (2 sets of 5 laps) and some quad/hamstring work with my ankle weights....yahoo! Better than nothing,eh?
The Pilates mat work is on hold as my stomach under current circumstances, does not feel like being that engaged  ; )

Last night (Wednesday) My nausea and gastric pain issues started to escalate so I had an Ambien sleeping pill and a Adavan injection put into my IV line....whoohoo! Sleep came so sweetly and I felt like Dorothy when she could not go one step forward without slumbering in the Poppy fields..Great sleep until 7am and even though my mind is a bit fluffy my stomach (I am relieved to report) is doing much better : )

My focus today is to "Come out of the dark, come into the light".....Wizard of Oz....and get this day done!

It seems that they will make my next and LAST round start a week earlier so I will be FINISHED by the 26th of May instead of the set back date of June 3rd.......watch for the big balloon in the sky on the that day ; )

Come Out of The Dark Come Into The Ligfht......Wizzard of Oz

A Do Over

It is one week later and I am waiting at Moffitt for an available bed, so that I can begin the chemo round that I was supposed to do last week. I have learned from all of my past visits here, that Moffitt is Latin for: "...wait around for a very long time."

On the up side, my postponed treatment was a bit of a holiday from cancer. I had one extra week of feeling good and doing normal things.

The big event for me was going to my first Bikram Yoga class since this all began. 107 degrees, yeah baby! Of course my knee does not bend as much as it should to do the postures authentically, but it was awesome for me just to be there. Anyone who knows me well is aware of my masochistic love of this particular yoga practice and the studio where it is done.

So amazing to be back at Jeannine's studio amongst the very sweaty yoga friends who are a bit twisted like me!
It was one more piece of the exploded puzzle of my life being put back in its proper space.

My room is almost ready....or so they say (remember Latin...), and once again it will be "Cocktails at Moffitt." After this round I will have only one more to go. Trust me, my fingers and toes are crossed that there are no more bumps in the road!