Second post of the day……before I start to feel too ill. Click here to see the one from earlier.

I’m usually not supposed to have visitors stay in the infusion center because the nurses need to get around……but today they let Perry stay. She kept taking secret photos though and sending them to me…..like one as I returned from the bathroom:

I told the nurses that the doctors will be glad I’m not there all day anymore…..since I am always having them take photos and check out things I’m writing about. I won’t be distracting them anymore.

Justin stopped by after caddying for our friend Meaghan in her first round at the Kraft Nabisco Championship:

I stayed until almost 6pm to get an extra bag of fluid today.  It was probably my longest day yet! But surprisingly it turned out to be my last day of chemo as long as I’m tested weekly for any signs of tumors remaining. I feel really good about Dr. L and my compromise on chemo and that I’ll finally get a break!  All the nurses got together and had a little impromptu celebration as I left. It was so cute. Bring on the sick days because I’ll be feeling better soon enough!  Only a few rough days ahead.

I went in this morning ready for a fight. I really just didn’t want to do another round of this chemo. My body was telling me: NO MORE! Dr. L was ready for me….the first thing he said was “well, you know how I feel about it.” Someone must have given him a heads up. I’ll find you! Ha. Anyways…….we compromised. I’ll do Cisplatin today and he’ll let me skip next week’s Methotrexate. That means: today is my LAST day of chemo. Finally a break after 23 weeks straight. I’ll still have to have weekly blood tests for a year to monitor everything closely and keep on top of any regrowth. We’ll monitor everything closely by CT scans too but at least there is an end in sight right now!

Perry came with me to see what goes on here. Everyone in the office says we look alike. I told Perry: at least now you what you would look like bald, right?

Why didn’t I want to come in today? Well, I thought another round might kill me. Seriously. Like it might do more harm than good. My body feels like it might actually reject the IV and spit everything out. Dr. L was doing his dictation and he said into the recorder “she is experiencing chemo fatigue” and I quickly added loudly over him “AND CHEMO ANNOYANCE”…..I hope that makes it into the report. It started a whole conversation about medical dictation bloopers. Here are a few of my favorites that I found online:

“The next patient’s name is Doe, John…. I’m not sure which is the first name and which is the last name, although I would imagine Doe would be the last name, unless it’s John.” Source

“This is an outpatient history and physical dictated by Dr. Evans. Date of proposed procedure is on Friday the…gulp… 13th!” Source

Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant. Source

Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital. Source

She has no rigors or chills but her husband says she was very hot in bed last night. Source

*****

Perry used her ponytail to make me some hair to entertain Dr. L. It must run in the family that we try to lighten the mood and make everything not-so-serious. Don’t I look like Andy Warhol?

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
-Andy Warhol

I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is “In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.”
-Andy Warhol, later

I already feel better that I’m hooked up to the IV. No chemo yet…..just hydration and pre-meds. I’ll start feeling back to myself around next Tuesday, and I know come next Tuesday that I’ll be so relieved that I did the treatment.

Update: Sorry, I forgot to mention that my numbers aren’t at zero. My HCG numbers have just been fluctuating between 2 and 3…..so Dr. L thinks that might just be my normal range of HCG production.  We’ll know for sure once I go off chemo….if the tumors start to grow back soon after we’ll know that 2 and 3 means the tumors are still “alive.” If not, we killed them!  Hope that makes sense!

I was kind of a baby yesterday at chemo. Not because they poked me a total of 7 times before they could get any blood and blew a vein, but because they ended up putting the IV right in the crook of my elbow and anytime I moved my arm it would slow down the drip….and it made me NOT happy. I couldn’t type OR play Draw Something on my phone. End of the world right? I have about 50 games of Draw Something going……I’m trying to get enough coins to upgrade my colors so I don’t have to draw BLUE trees anymore. I just watched a few movies I had with me and tried to nap a little. The good news was that I wasn’t the last one there yesterday……a few stragglers behind me!

I always go into chemo with cheekbones….and 8 hours later after all the fluid has entered my body I look like a swollen chipmunk! This is mid-way chipmunk:

It was kind of a really long day for the first time. Typing always passes the time. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m typing….I just write and write and write. I did pass the time trying to figure out what flavor jelly belly I picked out of the bag without looking. I’d gag every time I got popcorn…..I should have picked all of those out first.

I begged Dr. Luke to let this be my last week of chemotherapy. He sympathizes. He can tell it’s getting worse and worse with the Cisplatin. I haven’t been able to sleep at all and I have hot flashes all the time. I can tell that my ovaries are slowly dying. I tried so hard to maybe get my eggs frozen before I was blasted with chemotherapy….but there just wasn’t anytime or the cancer would have taken over my body. Maybe they’ll recuperate…..or maybe I’m going into early menopause……either way these little guys are suffering big time. I tell my sister Perry that she better have twins soon…..and I’ll take one…..the cutest one haha. A daily conversation here:

Boo: WHEN can I have a sister?
Me: Diesel’s your brother….and you make him wear dresses….that’s pretty close right?
Boo: Diesel is a DOG.

I went in for my Neulasta shot. Every time they inject it in my stomach I say “$4,950…..get into my belly”! Yes, this tiny little “I want to be a grown up shot, but I’m just a wee little shot” is $4,950. Each one. Maybe because it’s so cute and miniature? Small things always seem to cost more. If it was a 4 foot shot it would probably cost 49 cents.

Oh my gosh….I have to share my newest thing. Since I’ve had trouble sleeping they prescribed me Ambien…..which seemed to help a little. BUT the thing that helped them most? A simple bar of soap under the bottom sheet of my bed…..placed down by my feet. I was researching “restless leg syndrome” a few months back for Mr. LBB and came across this remedy. No one knows why it works but it does. Mr. LBB has been using it for months. I had the most restless legs last night and the second I unwrapped a bar of soap and put it down by feet…..instantly the restlessness was gone. It’s not hokey….it really works. I’ll take it. Some people say to use Dove soap…..the Irish Spring worked fine. If anyone knows why it works I’d love to know!