And I was the baton. My mom brings me for my treatments every 3 weeks and soon that will increase to every week.  The cancer center is 30 minutes from my house but only 15 from hers. My house is also 15 minutes from her’s, but in the opposite direction. Normally she picks me up making it a 45 minute trip for her. She’s happy to do it but I feel kind of bad, especially in bad weather.  Yesterday my dad collected me, dropped me at mom’s and she took me to the center. Later we went back to her place where my husband picked me up after work. I’m happy to report no one dropped the baton and we were even fed and got to visit with my sister and her significant other!  It was a nice day in spite of the reason for it.

Chemotherapy went well, blood work looked good and as usual the nurses were great.  I had a new one this round. She was very efficient but joked around and the time flew right by. Though this was my 3rd treatment it was the first time I was actually in a chemo bay. I had a nice corner unit that was warm and sunny, a comfortable recliner and television. I had my “chemo bag” with a few comforts from home and a novel. Oh I should mention, not everyone was comfortable. My mom kept sliding off the poorly designed couch and was finally given a straight chair to prop her legs on.  I was teasing her it’s because she’s so short, but that couch did look pretty uncomfortable. I offered her the recliner, but for some reason no one ever takes me up on that.    Though the bays have a little privacy in the way of curtains you can hear what’s going on around you. One lady started walking from bay to bay, wheeling her infusion pump along, asking people about their diagnoses and treatment plans and going into great detail about hers. Mercifully she ran out of steam before reaching me.  There was a bit of moaning and complaining going on and you didn’t have to look around to know it was coming from the men.  My nurse said that’s usually the case and we started chatting how men generally do not take illness and pain quite as..umm.. stoicly as women do, which prompted this little joke from her:

A husband and wife presented to the hospital in labor. Once settled in they were told about a new experimental option where a percentage of labor pain could be transferred to the father of the baby allowing him to share in the experience while making it a bit easier on the mother. They both agreed. With the next big contraction he got 25% of the pain and exclaimed “That was nothing”, so they upped it to 50% for the next one.  He still insisted it wasn’t bad at all and was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about. Finally it was upped to 75%.  The baby was born, mother was happy with the small amount of pain and her husband was still amazed at how easy it was.  Later when he returned home he found the mailman dead on the porch.  HA!

I did end up fessing up to only taking half the prescribed dosage of the steroid following my last infusion. It wasn’t deliberate and I’m still not sure how I managed to mess it up, but I didn’t have that big steroid crash that left me feeling so bad the first time around, nor did I have the terrible acne that was attributed to the steroid. My appetite didn’t rage out of control and I slept well. I was prepared for a lecture and a list of reasons I had to take the higher dose, but am happy to report I can remain on the smaller one.  Any time I can take less of any medication, I’m all over it, but especially this.  I like to call it Forrest Gumping when someone in the family does something kind of boneheaded but it works out to their advantage.  So this week I am proud to say I Forrest Gumped my way into less medication and less side effects. Chocolate anyone?