hipgrandma's Cancer Blog
November 7, 2006
| Chemo #2 (I promise, it's funny) | Views: 119 |
Chemo went much more smoothly today. I zipped in and out of radiation and got to chemo very early. Last time I waited over 2 hours to get the chemo started, and it was still one hour this time, but that seemed somehow much less stressful. We started with the pre-meds. First benadryl so I won’t have a massive allergy attack from the chemo, combined with ativan so the chemo won’t give me a complete nervous breakdown. Then steroids to soften the side effects for a couple days AND to turn me into a hyperlunatic for that same period of time. Hyperlunacy is a bit fun, but the pay off is a bitch. Coming off the steroids is . . . hard. Hey, the worst thing is that during steroids, there is no damned way to control the appetite.
As always, Dan was with me every minute of radiation and chemo, calling for heated blankets, checking on the prescriptions, massaging my feet, fetching my drinks—beautifully rendered acts of love and devotion that do more to heal me than the $60,000 chemo drugs could ever dream of doing.
Oh yeah, it’s true—since this is a political night, I will indulge myself in a little conspiracy theorizing (remember hyperlunacy). This last year of medical bills, mostly payed by Aetna thank goodness(attn: gratitude journal), have been a true eye opener. The doctor bills my insurance co $7500 for a 6 hour surgery and they pay him $1200 bucks. Woah, I have to admit, I’m on the side of the doctor here. Now, here’s another claim, $10,000+ for the drugs from ONE CHEMO treatment, and, guess what, the insurance company is paying them $10,000+. Does this disparity perhaps suggest that the pharmaceutical companies are the original evil demons? With the insurance companies as their sidekicks, of course, who maybe even will be getting a little Christmas kickback coming up pretty quick now.
My chemo visitors were: early shift, Ariella, Kai, and Jeff. After they were there for 1/2 hour, the chemo nurse manager came in to say that children must be 8 years old to visit cancer Grandma. A half hour is quite enough for Kai to be inside anywhere, so we had already had a very nice visit and it was time for them to go, anyway. Orion takes the late shift, coming and hanging out for awhile and then carrying the stuff down to the car.
What stuff, you say? Well, my own pillow, never leave home without it, an mp3 player with some relaxing music and creative visualizations, a book, some puzzles, just the right mechanical pencil for sudoku, a small altar, a bunch of little herbal things that I carry at all times, and last, but not least, a puffy pink cooler with baked tofu that Dan made last night, a “salad” of romaine lettuce, some delicious snacks, and some frozen juice boxes that didn’t really defrost so we had pear slushies. All that lovely natural, delicious and ENTIRELY organic stuff going down one tube, and drugs that are poisoning my entire being headed into another. Sweet mystery of life . . .
One final visitor that I forgot to mention was my gyn/onc, Tangir. He holds my hand and asks me what feels sick—that’s some actual healing! From a doctor, no less. He said he would not be giving me neulasta since my WBC bounced back so spectacularly well (the miracle of the herbs), and because although neulasta is sometimes given prophylactically, it has a very high incidence of its primary side effect, severe bone pain, and he wants to save me that pain if at all possible. My blood will be monitored once a week till the next chemo. He did give me a shot for red blood cells, though, even though the anemia was mild. It was because the anemia markets kept trending lower and, well, I had that little incident last year where I nearly died of anemia and had to receive the blood of many strangers. Talk about lunacy.
01.09.07 - 
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