Catia Bitching Cancer

Jill drove me to the chemo room on Thursday: before getting into the halls of hell we had a nice lunch on Vermont at a small French bistro where I enjoyed chicken pate’ that delighted my palate. I had never had much chance to talk to Jill at length about our hopes and beliefs and faith and I was glad I had that chance, though I have to say that with two anti-anxiety Ativans in my system I wasn’t really my sassy self. Which might have been a relief for Jill, really. I have now learned a lot of the tricks of getting chemo to have a low impact on you: for example, the day before chemo I have to have my blood drawn to make sure that I have enough white blood cells to allow me to undergo chemo without developing neutropenia (a potentially fatal lack of white blood cells). Now, I have never been afraid of having needles stuck into my body. My mom was a nurse and she taught us all at a very early age to inject intramuscular medication to ourselves and others. I also have to inject myself with subcutaneous medication in my legs or belly for four days in the week following chemo to give a boost to the bone marrow production of white blood cells…but I am starting to get sick of needles now. For one thing, when the inject the chemo into my hand it hurts more: veins are thinner there and can take so much pressure from the medications going in, so they stay sore for quite a few weeks after chemo. So my trick is that the day previous to the chemo, when I get my blood count, I ask the nurse to draw blood from the hand. The following day then, the chemo nurse can’t go give me chemo on the poked hand, for risk that the toxic substance would flow out of the vein and cause a nasty burn (yes, that’s the danger).

I finally also got the trick for antinausea medications that make miracles, though I have developed anemia and my liver functions are not at their best. But doctor Faith seems to think I can stand just one more cycle, with only one extra injection boost for my blood cell count. I can’t wait for May 3rd to arrive. Ten days later we’ll celebrate Mother’s Day with a trip to central California wine country (near Santa Barbara), all of us and our friends the Powers camping and Bruce and Mark doing a half marathon. The following week in Long Beach we’ll celebrate life and love and participate to Gay Pride festivities, walking in the parade and staffing our St. Luke’s booth (an inclusive welcoming church of the Episcopal church of the US). We’ll celebrate mass at the ocean where many of our lesbian and gay couples will renew their vows of commitment, those who are married and those who are not yet married, in the process of deciding whether to make their union a marriage. So many things to look forward to now…and not to forget my big feat in November! And I finally found a long lost dear friend, whom I hadn’t heard from for years and now I am happy to be able to talk to again. I have many things to feel blessed today…until next time, when I might not feel that cheery….love to all

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.