Round 2 begins

Boy, that was a great three weeks! Other than being tired in the evenings, I was feeling normal most of the time. During that time, we had friends over for dinner, I went out to lunch with my neighbor, Ed and I went out to lunch and for a walk around the mall (where I bought some cool new shoes for our vacation), we entertained Mom over Easter weekend, I did a lot of cooking and some housecleaning, tried repairing my broken router but was unsucessful (I had no personal computer for a week!!), and did quite a bit of research for our trip to Europe.

Yesterday morning I started the first cycle of round 2. Of course, my port gave me problems again and simply would not produce any bloodflow for the draw. I think I may have a sheath that has grown around the end of the catheter and acts like a valve -- it lets fluid pass through the catheter but when you try to draw fluid up the catheter, it blocks the entrance. It was pretty comical actually as my chemo nurse, Karen (gosh, women named Karen are just fabulous), tried every trick in her book to draw blood. It took about 15 minutes (she suctioned, she had me lay flat, I turned my head in the opposite direction and stretched the opposite arm out, she started a high-rate IV of saline, gave me a shot of heparinted saline solution to break up any potential clots, she tried moving the port) and finally, finally we got a trickle, then a slow flow and then suddenly a normal blood flow.

If this problem persists (and believe me, although the chemo nurses are great, not all of them have this much patience), they will try a solution that they inject through the port and into the catheter where it sits for 30 minutes and then it's drawn back out. With any luck, that will eliminate the problem. The only other option is surgical intervention, and you KNOW how I feel about that!

This morning, I'm feeling good. I feel very fleeting nausea but otherwise no other side effects. Yesterday afternoon I was very tired and my lower back, hips, knees and ankles hurt, but a few doses of ibuprofen over six hours took care of that. This afternoon, I'm hoping to get out to a talent show that my 8-year-old neighbor is participating in. She's normally so shy and quiet that I wouldn't have imagined she would volunteer, but she wanted to play her guitar (she only started lessons two months ago) and see how well she could compete. Go Brieanne!!

Lydia G and I are going to try to get out for coffee and a visit tomorrow. Otherwise, I'm hopeful that Ed and I will make time to watch our two Netflix movies. It's a great service but they generally make a mint on us. We've had these movies for two weeks now and haven't taken the time to watch them. I'm determined to do so this weekend.

Our friends Steve and Kate are off on another sailing on Azamara Quest today. As you may recall, we met them on that ship in November, and they are lovely, fun, kind people. Wishing smooth seas and sunny skies to them over the next two weeks!

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope your weekend is wonderful.