More Changes

This morning Joe, Kendall and I had our meeting with my oncologist's nurse practitioner, aka ray of sunshine, Kim.  She went over all of the nitty gritty details of my chemo treatments and such.  I will admit it was hard to sit there and listen to it all and see it all before me.  Certain parts of it were relieving and others not so much.  One step at a time, right? Whew!  Then I had to go pee in a cup and have more needles for more blood work.  When I checked in at the lab I told them the sooner the better for the cup part so they took mercy on me and sent me into the bathroom right away.  One should not push their luck with the bladder of a woman over 50 that has had 3 kids.  

Now for the changes...Now my portocath goes in on the 7th.  She explained it is a procedure that I will be in a twilight type sleep for so thank goodness for that.  They make an incision just below my colar bone on my left side to insert the port and another just above that to feed the tube into a main vein/artery.  Doesn't that sound fun!  I am surprised I didn't wet my pants right there actually.  I will have a meeting with another nurse to go over that in greater detail on the 1st...do I really want greater detail?  I think that was enough! ;o)  

The date to start my first round of chemo is now up in the air.  I have to wait to get approval from the people doing the clinical trial I signed up for and that should come in on the 13th.  That means chemo is pushed back another week now and will be possibly on the 14th, 16th or 17th.  I want to get this party started and I am feeling a bit anxious about that.  The sooner I start the sooner I am done...ya know what I mean?!  If I stay on schedule without any treatments delayed due to my body not cooperating then I should be done with chemo towards the beginning of December.  That would be a great Christmas gift if you ask me...heck, no gift wrap needed on that one!  

Blessings

First of all I have a blessing to share from yesterday. I had so many yesterday that I didn't want to overwhelm all of you so I saved it! One of my dear, sweet clients Eileen brought me a beautiful painting she did for me. She said she lets God direct her for inspiration and she painted me "Victory!" I am so proud to say that I am now the proud owner of 2 "Eileen originals".  One is at work and this one is now home with me so I can be reminded every morning when I wake up and every night as I go to bed that I am surrounded by victories.  Some of them are only small daily ones that most people might not even notice and others will be huge landmark ones...but I am collecting them all and hanging on to them. I will need them all to lead me to the big VICTORY of full recovery and restored health!  

The other blessing came today.  It may seem like nothing to you but when I went to pick up my prescriptions at Vons today both the tech and the pharmacist told me how heart sick they were to see these prescriptions called in with my name on them. They knew what it meant and they told me I would be in their prayers.  I honestly feel like I am surrounded by so many people praying for me and being concerned about me that it simply overwhelms me at times. I have had the most unbelievable emails, private FB messages, card and messages on this blog.  I have some pretty darn good friends and I cherish you all as true gems in my treasure box of life.  I may not respond to each and every message but please do not think that they don't mean something to me.  Sometimes I am just too overwhelmed and too tired to do so and then they start piling up on me.  Each and everyone of them gets read and I love them all...just like I love you all.  Please make sure when you leave messages on this blog that you sign your name especially if you have one of those funky log in names.  I don't know who some of them are from and I want to make sure I do.  

Well this little buckaroo is exhausted and would like this day to come to a close. Kendall and I took precious little Morgan and Addison (her friend's 2 and 4 year olds) to the fair this afternoon and I feel like I ran a marathon. Don't get me wrong, they were perfect angels and I could just gobble them up. It just tuckered me out and I am pooped! In the mean time I have included a photo of me, Eileen and VICTORY as well as a pic of my new prescriptions.  Seriously...maybe I could use a few more!  

If you look carefully you can see my other Eileen original in the background. 

Beth's pharmacy.  The tube is a numbing cream I will put on the surface of my skin for the chemo needle to go through into my portocath.