No School Today

So here's the short of it,
We were out of school today so I didn't have to take a 1/2 day sick for my doctors appointments!

And here's the long

Today we got a "weather day" and didn't have to go to school.  Because I work a teacher calendar, I was delighted to hear at 5:30 this morning that school had been canceled today.  We had quite a storm.  Roads and streets were closed because they were impassable - standing water, rock, mudslides, or just washed out.  There was a news story about a man driving out of his driveway and the front wheels of his truck were swallowed up in a culvert collapse.  Fortunately he was OK, but they couldn't get his truck out without damaging it pretty badly.  Hamilton County has gone to a phone tree.  So instead of getting up and watching the news or listening to the radio to find out about school, we get a robo-call.  My cell phone rang about 5:30 this morning and I couldn't get to it in time.  The house phone rang right after - Alan answered it - no school!  I slept until 9:30 and probably wouldn't have gotten up then if the animals had been a little quieter.

The rest of my morning was pretty relaxed!  But this afternoon was filled up with treatment stuff!  I had my radiation treatment.  It went really quickly.  After it was over, I asked them to show me where the command center for the treatment is.  They showed me the machines and the closed circuit TV right outside the door.  Now I get it - one of the techs is always doing something on the machine when I get there- which I now know is putting in the specs for my treatment; the other one is setting up the table with "my stuff"  - my upper body mold, getting the "bottom plate" on the exact measurement, putting the gray sponge that sits below my back in its right spot, and getting the right size knee lift to go under my knees.  All that is set up exactly the same every single time. Today there was an addition.  They taped something that looked like a wire to the center of my chest to record the amount of the radiation dose.

After my treatment I had an appointment with my radiation oncologist.  He says that so far everything looks good.  He inspected my skin and palpitated all the tissues in the radiation field to see if there were any changes.  He was very pleased with everything.  At this point I have no skin degradation, and all the tissue in the radiation field seems to be normal.  I did notice that his fingers on the tissue over the surgical field didn't feel the same as on the tissues that had not been disturbed.  It was almost as though on that part of my breast, there was a thin piece of fabric between my skin and his fingertips.  At any rate, I got a really good report.  He also was pleased with my color and he prognosticated that my blood counts would be up.

Next it was up to the fifth floor for my Herceptin treatment.  Of course since my port still hasn't been fixed, the infusion has to go in a vein AND since my lymph nodes were removed on my left side, I'm not supposed to be stuck or have blood pressure read or anything like that on my left side.  So that only my right hand and arm are available for sticking - again!  My veins did not cooperate today and the machines that pump the infusion in didn't cooperate either.  The first stick was in the big vein I have on the back of my hand.  It wouldn't work - no blood would come out and no liquid would go in - Lori changed pumps - still nothing.  That needle came out and she stuck me in the crook of the arm.  The needle went right in.  The pump didn't work and the vein "blew out".  I hear Liga talking about that all the time.  When she gets home from work she'll get a kick out of that and want to look at it.  My nurse, Lori, knows that Liga works in a lab, and she jokingly said that Liga would say "how could you not get a vein, they're like garden hoses."  I think that's a compliment coming from someone who has to stick people all the time.  Anyway the last stick and a new pump machine worked.  It went in on the inside of my wrist.  That's a pretty tender little place and the stick hurt for a minute, but it finally worked.  It gave a vial of blood for my labs and the infusion went right on. 

My blood counts are inching up.  I had to have a Procrit shot again today, but Lori said that might be my last one of those!  She also set up Dec. 21st for having my port fixed.  I'll get the details of the time and which office later.  That means I have only one more treatment to do with a stick.  After that it will be back to the port!  That is so much better.