Familiar yet strange

My friend Stephen asked me the day before whether this was a bit like the dread of going back to school after summer vacation.  I had to say no, that it it is not quite like that; the big difference being that there is no ominous threat ready to kill you if you stay longer on summer vacation.  On the contrary, I would have preferred starting chemo a week sooner so I could progress more quickly to the part where it is behind me.  But I get the reference. I will miss the pleasures of energy, taste and... whatever you call the opposite of feeling nauseous.

Back in the infusion lounge at 8:30am, it felt somewhat nostalgic to see all those faces again.  I grabbed my favorite seat by the window and greeted each of the nurses and other staff with the bittersweet, "It's good to see you again and I'm sorry to see you here again" paradox.

It was a slow start as my port was all gummed up.  It took three saline flushes before the back flow was established for the initial blood screening.  Abby showed up in time to witness this, much to her regret, but soon the hydration was begun.  We snacked on nuts and met the neighbors while Nurse Linda got the clearance to hang the heavy stuff on the pole.

The first round is always the anti nausea drugs and that libation is always puts you in the mood.  The second round was Carboplatin and I found that it complimented tuna fish sandwich quite nicely.  Things got a little weird on the third round when Irinotecan was introduced.

I started noting some visual glitches in my peripheral vision; slight enough that I did not give it much thought.  But when I made a trip to the bathroom, the lines on the margins of the square tiles were undulating around in a trippy manner.  Kinda cool but definitely not normal.  I rang up Linda on the call button and she cut off the Irinotecan flow and replaced it with saline.  At the same time, I noticed that it was only in the left eye.  As the effect diminished back to normal, it occurred to me that it could be related to my recent bout of iritis.  My last dose of highly concentrated steroid eyedrops was just yesterday and only in my left eye.  This seemed to be a reasonable explanation and Linda put the drug back on the drip but at a slower rate and all seemed to be fine.

There were surprise visits from Amy the nutritionist and Alina the counselor and even my grumpy former neighbor, Jim Scott.  Actually Mr. Scott did not see me this time and I like it that way.

Now I'm home and feeling kind of crappy... but not so bad.  I cooked a nice birthday dinner for Marlee (mushroom risotto) and Abby joined us.  Early to bed tonight.