Hail? No. To Chemo We Go

I am happy to report that we made it to my chemo treatment without running into any of the really nasty weather. It began thundering and lightning here in the wee hours of the morning followed by  a lot of rain, but thankfully, no hail, and  the rain actually slacked off a little as we drove to the  clinic. Other  places around us weren't so lucky. There was  quite a bit of hail damage, and some trees were blown down in the surrounding areas. Of course, Agatha and Victoria,  having the good sense to come in from the rain, wouldn't venture out into it either before we left.  I finally lifted Agatha  and put her out, but she refused to move  out from the eave of the house. We had visions of  coming home to a stinky mess, but  there was actually little evidence of accidents.

 We left a little early because of the weather and took the back route in case there was any construction or flooding going on  along our usual route. I signed in at the clinic ten minutes early and was called back to the lab almost immediately for my blood tests and vitals. My blood pressure was  a little high, but that's not unusual. My white blood cell count was a little better than it has been and I haven't needed any of the Neupogen shots this go round, maybe because of the shiitake mushrooms I ate Tuesday night. Some research studies have shown that  shiitake mushrooms do boost immunity and I would love to  have  more of those lovely white cells  coursing in my veins so I could  get out  and be around people more often without risking catching something.  I should keep shiitakes on my grocery list. Oh- and I've gained another pound- I now weight a whopping 93 pounds! Maybe it's actually muscle from the gardening I've been doing, and the yoga. I'd much rather think of it as muscle than flab, and I've read that even elderly people can actually  build muscle mass with the proper nutrition and exercise program.

From the lab I was sent over to the infusion room, which had fewer patients  than  normal, probably because of the weather. I took my usual seat near the restroom  and by 9:30 AM was hooked up to the bags hanging from my pole. I always make sure that I have a book or video ready on my Kindle Fire, but so far I've been unable to read or watch anything. I keep dozing off once they hook me up to the diphenhydramine and  don't get really active again until the last bag (the Camptosar/irinotecan), is hooked up a few hours later  when I'm  up and dragging my pole to the restroom every ten minutes it seems, to unload the fluids that have been pumped into me. I will say that   my speech wasn't quite as slurred  yesterday as it usually is.  I keep meaning to ask what the cause is, but I suspect it's a combination of  side-effects from the drugs and the  dry mouth resulting from the atropine injection.

I was finally unhooked around 1:45 PM and we headed home, with the sun brightly shining. I was glad to have my sunglasses with me, especially since it was so  dark and grey  when we left home that I questioned whether I would need them at all.

Once home, Mr G  scrambled an egg for me and brought me a cup of coffee. I went to sleep and slept almost all afternoon and into the evening, waking up to eat some chicken soup and toast. And then I went to bed for the night :-) Today I'm up  but not about much and am having the  red face, hot   steroid flush side effect. Actually the red face is an improvement over   yesterday's color, which was its usual post treatment zombie gray pallor. The wind  was blowing early this morning.  It was whistling around the corners of the house and sounded like a nor'easter. As I gazed out the front door this morning, I saw that the rain yesterday had washed  everything clean, revealing the  myriad shades of green on the  trees as they are donning their spring finery and swaying not so gently in the  wind.