Hey It's Just Me Checking In

Okay so I’ve been really remiss at updating my progress, assuming that you all still want them.  Last Monday, April 21^st was my last day of 12 chemo sessions for the current therapy.  Yea!  When I get back from Hawaii I will start something new which will consist of two of the three drugs I’ve been taking.  The drug that causes sensitivity to cold will be nixed – thank you very much! Oh and my peeps will be throwing me a party to celebrate my completing this last chemo therapy.  I'm so spoiled! And so excited – I leave for Hawaii next Thursday first thing in the morning and after that, it’s on ya’ll.  We’re going to have some sunshine, blue skies, bask in the waves of a beautiful sea, sandy beaches, drinks with umbrellas in them and me shaking my groove thing at a big luau.  I am so ready.

I have to tell you about my last chemo though only because it was amusing and we need to take every chance we get to laugh when we get a chuckle.  So I was plugged in with tubes here and tubes there and two of my favorite nurses were working on me to get a blood draw without success.  So they had me reclined all the way back in my chair – didn’t work.  They asked me to lay back and put one hand in the air with abandon like I just don’t care – didn’t work.  The last pose was a keeper.  I’m on my side with my right arm stretched out behind me with the male nurse standing over me with his hand splayed across my breast and pushing down on my port.  At the same time, the other nurse is mumbling to her fellow nurse, “Great, perfect don’t…move… an… inch…I’ve got it.”  To the onlooker it may have looked like we were doing a photo shoot for something naughty.  It was at that moment my doctor walked in and balked, “What is going on here?  What are you doing to my patient!?”  We all got a good laugh and Nurse Marion explained, “It’s okay Dr. P. just trying to get a good blood draw.”  Hey in the chemo biz you take the humorous moments when they present themselves and just run with 'em.

So in my last update I mentioned they’d done some CT scans when I was in the hospital and determined from the scans that the cancer in my liver had spread.  But Dr. P. redid the scans and they showed that the cancer in the liver had not changed since the last scans he did pre-hospital.  This means the chemo is working at killing the cancer cells so we’re golden.  I so needed to hear that good news.

As of today, last couple of days have been rough but I can’t complain because they could be so much worse.  I’ve been seriously dragging with fatigue weighing down on me.  But sometimes I just have to listen to my body and do absolutely nothing.  So I’ve been lying around watching the tube, eating when my stomach tells me to, taking my nausea meds and drinking a lot of water, which seems to help with a multitude of sins and whatever else ails me.  My doctor asked me if I wanted to have a chemo session on May 5th before I left and ‘hell no’ immediately came to mind.  If I did that I'd be having chemo Monday, wearing the fanny pack with the 5FU drug until Wednesday and then catching my flight to Hawaii on Thursday.  Yeah, no.  As it stands now, by next week the residual effects of chemo will for the most be doing an exodus and I’ll be good to go for my travels without fatigue and nausea hanging on me like a wet blanket.

So there you have it.  Hopefully my next post will have pictures of my Hawaii trip and me with a lei around my neck and a frilly drink in my hand.  Aloha!


I have the gift of laughter. I can make people laugh at will. In good times and in bad. And that I don't question. It was a gift from God.

Buddy Hackett