January 15th 2009, Perspectives

It's been 14 weeks since my last chemo and I feel like a novice. How quickly the memory of prior chemos has flown. How did I feel afterwards? I'm in the chair getting started.

New location, unfamiliar surroundings. The room I'm in is huge with high ceilings and 7' high 10' long partitions creating "areas", each with 2 to 3 chairs. At first I miss the other location where all chairs faced one direction. Here the patients face one another. Some are chattering away seemingly full of energy and encouragement for each other. Others smile tired sympathetic smiles.

So much has happened in the past 14 weeks - two surgeries, a Presidential election, Christmas and a New Year. (My energy returned in full the week after Christmas.) The whole earth seems to be groaning with wars and rumors of wars, fears of financial disaster.

So here I sit, receiving the first of my last 3 chemos. I don't remember much probably because there wasn't much to remember. Only the 1" growth of hair on my head is left to mark the treatments past. I expect to lose it though.

I skipped my daily dose of antioxidents this morning. I must give them up until after my final chemo. Every cell in my body is left unprotected and I picture the innocent cells standing like little soldiers, helplessly, bravely, as the attack begins. What is to me a tranquil 3 hour drip of Taxotere is a fearsome battle for my body. Unfortunately many healthy happy cells will die alongside the destructive life-sapping ones. It's a necessary sacrifice I tell them, for the good of the body. Hair cells die with cancer cells. I think of our soldiers at war and realize once again the small price of baldness.

A small feisty woman I guess to be in her seventies joins us. A patient I cannot see comments he hasn't seen her in a while. "I quit," she said, "I gave my body a break, but they called and said it was time to get started again, so here I am. What do you think of the new place?" she asks then answers her own question before he has a chance, "I think it's terrible!" "Helen, are you behaving yourself?" asks the nurse. "No!" she answers offering chocolates from a large box to the patients. She shoves the box at the nurse. "You ask the others," she says, "I'm too tired." She plomps into the only vacant chair. "I was hoping the chairs would be full and they'd send me home." "You keeping busy?" A man's voice behind the partition asks her. "I've got a busy week," Helen says, "I see the dentist on Monday and the priest on Tuesday. I haven't been to confession for a while. Don't have much to tell him. You gonna give me a DVD player to shut me up?" She asks the nurse hooking her up to an IV. "There's a movie I want to see that'll give me something to tell the priest." The nurse giggles, sets her up and Helen quiets down.

The Benedryl is making me sleepy but I'm too nosey to sleep. There are too many lives to observe. These partitions almost make eavesdropping legal. My nutritionist told me to drink lots of water to flush the poison out of my system so I'm making numerous trips to the restroom dragging my IV tubes, infusion bags and the pole they're suspended from behind me like an unwelcome pest.

The Taxotere bag is almost empty - maybe 20 more minutes worth and then only two chemos left! Yeah! It's not so bad really. I heard cancer clinics in Nevada were closed and patients were having to go outside their state. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have this treatment.