This word I like... We architect our life...
A song, a sigh... developing words that linger...
Through fields of green, through open eyes... It's for us to see.
Interanimate: To animate or inspire mutually

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Day -7

Hi 11 readers. I have inserted 4 pictures into the post that you may not see in the Email version. You'll have to browse the blog to see the pix.

We got to the hosp around 8pm last night, the 4 of us. We were shown to a double room facing the torrey pines golf course and the ocean. There will be no other occupant in the room so I choose the bed closest to the bathroom. Even though the bed near the huge window would be nice to wake up to in the morning, for more practical reasons, you need to be as close as possible to the bathroom. Obviously we were are pleasantly surprised at the selection of room for us. The other 2 times I was here for a short time, they put us in smaller rooms.
Cathie, Maddie, Dylan and I visited for a couple hours while various nurses came in and poked around me, drew blood, make me sign things that I wasnt allowed to read, etc... M&D decided to decorate the 2 white boards on the far wall. Down in the family room there are many puzzles that we'll look at completing while I'm here. We got a cool 1000 piece puzzle for Christmas that the family enjoyed completing in the 7 days leading up to today. It turns out to be a really cool family project.
The family left me at 10:10pm. We were all sad about having to part.

This morn at 4am I got my nightly headache 7 hours late. So I got up and paced the room. There was room to pace! Then it got to be 4:50am. Since I knew the nurses were coming in at 5am to give me 2 shot of Adivan, I buzzed them 10 minutes ahead of time and said "I'm ready". You see, they wont let me take the things that help this headache: Tylenol or Advil. Aleve doesnt really work. So I figure I wanted to get some of that Adivan. It worked. I've had 3 doses of it now and can think reasonably straight.



This time I saw the chemo tree that delivered the busulfex. The tree has eight branches. There are 4 bags hanging, their tubes winding down to a set of 4 pumps controlled by a central computer. The bags contain Busulfex, Zolfan, Saline Water only, and saline potassium. The Zolfan is also a anti-seizure/nausea drug. The Bulselfex is the bag on the top left of the tree.

Things are going great at this point. I suspect the buselfex will have me feeling quite run down by Friday.

Cathie, Maddie, and Dylan returned recently to hang out while I get the chemo.
Its so nice to still have family time. It's only in a different place.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your “chemo tree” looks like a pretty sophisticated piece of technology.

We’re all pulling for you and praying for you.

William Chadwick

Anonymous said...

Puzzles. I love puzzles. One of my girlfriends is going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. One of the activities that we do together are puzzles! It might be too girly, but Target has these Jane Wooster Scott puzzles that we absolutely love.
Hang in there,
June

Anonymous said...

Your attitude is inspirational. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that someday I can learn to live life like you do.

Anne said...

Jim,
My thoughts and prayers are with you lots during the day. I was on Cytoxin - don't know if it is still the same cocktail. Think Cruise Ship in the midst of a hurricaine. You'll be in the eye soon, then at port and home. Anne