ONE MORE TO GO!!!!

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.  – Khalil Gibran

ONE MORE TO GO!!  Man, it feels good to utter those words!  I was feeling a little worried about my appointment today because we’ve started making plans for our RV trip; i.e., we have actually made some campground reservations and bought tickets to the Grand Ole Opry (featuring Carrie Underwood, Randy Travis, and Josh Turner…..among others)!  So I really don’t want anything to get in the way of our trip now.  The plan….the big plan…..is for me to have MY LAST CHEMO DRIP on 9/28, MY LAST NEUPOGEN INJECTION on 9/29, and HIT THE ROAD as early as we can get away on 9/30.  Our tickets for the Opry are for 10/4, so that gives us a few days to get up there but not much time to spare.  So please keep your fingers crossed, knock on wood, pray, whatever……that everything goes smoothly next week.

This week went smoothly.  It was one of my “no wait” days today, which was really nice.  I even called them up this morning to see if I could come in an hour early.  That was because I had gotten up at 0300 (damn steroids) and finished all my transcription by 0930.  So they got me in early, the blood draw went smoothly (white count was 5.51), and “the drip” went off without a hitch.  In fact, I got there at 1030 and was out of there by 1230 – set a new record today, I think. 

The week has been relatively uneventful.  Ken’s ankle is doing much better overall, although he has some occasional “bad days” if he overexerts himself or is on his feet too long.  But it seems to be healing pretty quickly.  Of course, he takes pretty good care of it – wraps it, wears hiking boots, ices it, elevates it, etc.  He does all the right things.

I’ve had pretty minimal side effects this week – mild nausea here and there, fatigue late in the day, and extremely sore fingernails.  It’s hard to button buttons and is somewhat challenging to type.  Still not sure if I’m going to lose them or not (Dr. Sprawls warned me I might); I hope I just have to deal with the pain, and I hope that subsides after the chemo is over.  The watery eyes still prevail, too, which is also a challenge – everything is a big blur.  I have a lifetime supply of eye drops (thanks to a thoughtful sister-in-law), and they do help, but they don’t completely resolve the problem.  The other thing that is very annoying is taste disturbance – totally screwed-up taste buds.  Anyway, these are all minimal things that I can deal with, especially if I know they will resolve with time…..and I think they will…..so my doc says. 

The weekend was pretty quiet.  On Saturday, we had to take the dogs for their shots – never a fun thing, especially paying for it, but they were pretty good about it.  Then we came back to the RV and took our lunch down by the river – it was a beautiful day.   Pretty much took it easy the rest of the day.  On Sunday, we drove down to Wickham Park, a campground in Melbourne, to check out the sites there.  We had stayed there many years ago, but it was before they had a bad forest fire that burned down almost all of the trees in the park.  Anyway, we found a site we liked and made a reservation for the month of November.  It will be much closer to Viera, which is where I’ll have to go for my daily radiation treatments.  On the way home from Wickham Park, we stopped at Grill’s Riverside, a nice restaurant on the Indian River.  Sat outside, had a bite to eat, a margarita (please don’t yell at me; it tasted so good – one of the few things that still tastes good!  And I had 2 huge glasses of ice water with it), and listened to our favorite local musician, Johnny Danger.  He was really pumped up and put on a great show.

On Monday, I made sure the 2010 taxes were all in order and we met with our accountant.  We were dreading the visit, although he’s a great guy and always has good stories.  But we always owe money, and I just wasn’t in the mood to write out yet another check to the IRS.  Who is EVER in the mood for that??!!  ANYWAY, for the first time in a billion years, we’re getting a refund!  Oh, that was such music to our ears.  We even celebrated by stopping at our favorite Vietnamese/Thai restaurant for some chicken soup on the way home.    

And now we’re in trip-planning mode.  I worked on it a bit in the chemo suite and then spent all afternoon on it while Ken worked on getting the RV ready for the big trip.  We’re getting pretty excited about “getting out of dodge.”  I wish I could take the month off from work but no can do.  The office would miss me too much (just kidding), and I would miss the money too much.  I do have 2 great girls working for me right now, and I can manage the rest even when we’re on the road. 

Well, that about wraps things up for today.  More next week……

You know you’re a cancer patient when…….....you get excited about having to shave your legs!!!