Thursday's infusion

My infusion yesterday went well. Since we knew it would take about four hours, my mom dropped me off at the clinic and returned home and I called her to come back shortly before I was done. I got the results from the metabolic panel, which indicated that I was high in my glucose and BUN/creatinine ratio but that was not concerning to the nurses and did not prevent me from going ahead with chemo. I will get some more clarification on what that means when I meet with David or Dr. Curley next week. They did a second blood test right before the infusion and those results looked good. My platelets were lower than last week (109 to 100) but my white blood cells that fight infection were up almost a point higher (1.34 to 2.36).

Due to the clinic being closed on July 4th, the chemo room was very busy — there were twice as many patients so the infusion took a little longer. The nurses definitely earned their day off! I had the nurse Diana working with me. She is one of my favorites, not just because she has a cool name ;), but because she is so sweet and willing to help in anyway. I found out that she used to attend the same church as our family, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that several of her children have attended seminary. After going through a difficult divorce, she stopped going to church. I loved getting to know her better. She gave me permission to cut my Benadryl dose in half so it wouldn’t make me so tired and loopy for the rest of the day. It was much better, and we may even be able to cut it back a little more next week.

I sat next to my friend Meredith who I met last week when she was getting her first infusion. She has been on oral chemo for the past two years. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, went through treatment, then it metastasized and two years later the cancer spread to her other breast and organs. She will most likely be on some kind of chemo for the rest of her life. She cut her hair short during the past week and we talked about her reaction to her first infusion. She was so sad when she got her blood test results back, which showed she was too low to have treatment. :(  I could totally understand her emotions after my experience two weeks ago.

After she left, another woman named Mary came in for her last treatment. She was really talkative and eating food the entire time. She told me all about her three kids, one of which is in prison for dealing drugs. She talked about a wig she was getting, and totally made me laugh when she told me how excited she was to get “a pot card that would be good for two years!” I am making all kinds of new friends. ;)

The remainder of the time, I rested, texted a bit, and read my scriptures. By the time I got home, it was about 5pm and I was very tired and nauseated. I laid down for a bit, and then had a little soup and toast. Sucking on broth, smoothies, baby food pouches, and hard candies for nausea have all helped. If I am very careful with my eating, it all stays down. Mom is taking great care of me and went to the store to get me some saltines and bananas. I took a couple melatonin before bed to try and help me sleep Thursday night. 

Glen, Rebekah, Paul, and Ryan will be home on Sunday, and my mom will fly back to Utah on Wednesday. Hope you all have a marvelous Fourth of July celebration. My next infusion will be Friday, June 10th. Feeling blessed!