Sunday, August 16 - Chemo Day #3

Here's how the past several days have gone!

Thursday Aug. 13 - Still at home. Rachel and I walked through our schedules (fun, fun, fun!) at the high school. She is very happy that I don't really use my locker so she will be able to put her books in it. She'll be the only freshman with a half decent locker - hers is over in a tiny hallyway by the boys locker room. We picked up my retainers from the ortho - lovely clear plastic thingys that clip over my teeth and are a pain, but at least the braces are gone!!! We went out to dinner at Pizza Hut (YUM!) and visited with some friends from church and got some delicious ice cream from our local Oberweis. Mint chocolate chip - my favorite!

Friday Aug. 14 - Mom and I woke up at the crack of dawn so I could shower before coming to the hospital. We had an echo at 8:30 in the morning (ugh) which a fellow performed which means there was a teacher with him because he's still learning which means the echo took twice as long as it should have. Then we went and waited in the oncology clinic for vitals, seeing the doctor, getting my port accessed, having my PICC line pulled (YAY), and seeing the pictures of the CT scan to see how the cancer had shrunk. Even though I'm not a doctor, it was fairly obvious that the mass of lymph nodes is shrinking. The mass also had a less defined shape which the doctor says means that the cells are dying. Something called neucrosis... The chemo recipe this time consists of five drugs. I am currently on my fourth dose of the fifth drug. It's kind of crazy when you think about it - the nurses have to use these special blue gloves that are chemo tested and use special bags that say DANGER and yet they infuse it into my body. Of course, they try to flush it out as quickly as possible to let it kill what it needs to, but still, kind of ironic, don't you think?

Now more general on how the past few days have gone. I haven't been nauseous - YES! - and haven't gotten the mouth sores either - YAY! - at least, not yet. Hopefully none of that will happen. I'm getting pounded with anti-nausea meds before each chemo dose and I have this weird patch behind my ear that is supposed to help with nausea, too. I've just been lucky with the mouth sores. They eliminated one of the drugs that tends to cause really bad mouth sores, so that's probably why I've been lucky.

Dad stayed Friday night with me and most of the day Saturday. We played some games, I took some naps because I find it nearly impossible to sleep at night, and started watching the new Race to Witch Mountain. We've been catching bits of the Air and Water show - we saw some planes flying around yesterday and we've been hearing them all day today. We can't really see many because it's rainy and overcast, but a couple planes have come really close by!

Mom switched Dad out Saturday afternoon and brought tons of goodies - homemade carmel popcorn (no braces = carmel popcorn is allowed!!!) and zuchini bread along with some mail and these hats I ordered online from a gift certificate from a friend. There are three things: a pink sleep cap, a navy tie hat (it's basically a piece of soft cotton that fits over your head), and this hair piece that velcroes into hats. I'm really excited to try that out once I get home.

Here's the velcro hair that we kind of snuck under one of the hats I brought to the hospital.

This is the navy tie hat (which I have deemed the pirate hat) and my delicious carmel popcorn!

The Young Women came to visit today which was really fun! I got to see some friends that have been out of town for a while and some friends that I just haven't seen for a while because I've been gone. They were very cheering and a wonderful change from the dragging on of hospital days.
This is my Young Women's president, Sister Butler.

I'm getting an anti-nausea med in a few minutes that kind of knocks me out so we'll see how that goes. I'm getting the fourth dose of cytoxan (you can look it up if you really want to) in about forty minutes. The rest of the day consists of dinner, fluids, lots of trips to the bathroom, and a movie about President Hinckley.