Chemo #3

Here I am. Chemo #3. I made it.

MOM!

Today's sidekick is my Mother. We first made our stop at Starbucks and got my favorite drink and a bagel. Then we were on our way. When we got out of the elevator at the Cancer Center, my Mom called me a "cutie-pie." I was thrilled! How nice of her to notice my innate cuteness! Finally!  I've been waiting years for this kind of love from her...  Sadly, she quickly corrected me and said she was talking about the hot doctor in the elevator with us. Well! Humph! I was highly insulted.

But it's okay, I got her back.  When she said she would slip him her number had she been 20 years younger.  I said, "Um, Mom, you'd better rethink your math - you'd need to be about 40 years younger!" HA!  Try calling me a "cutie-pie" and then take it back again and see what happens!  HA!

After getting over my insult, I checked in and availed myself of the good-smelling hand sanitizer. We were taken back quickly and I was given my complimentary Keebler graham crackers and hooked up. Thankfully, I put the numbing cream on my port area early enough so it's all numb and no pain this time. I made the mistake of putting it on too late earlier this week before my blood test and it was a serious ouch! I learned my lesson.

I'm sitting in chair #12 this time.  There is a man across from me that looks very thin and ill and is in obvious pain. He's really the first obviously sick person I've seen. Most of us, minus our hair, look pretty healthy. I don't know exactly why this man is here but it's a reminder of what cancer can do and it's terrifying.  The woman sitting next to me has breast cancer as well.  It was her first chemo.  She said she was going to bypass chemo because her insurance wasn't going to pay for it but they came through and decided to cover it.  How sad that she would have had to make that choice...

Later, an elderly woman came in for IV fluids.  She was with her daughter and her daughter was very upset and cried several times.  A woman from the Cancer Center came and talked to them for quite a long time.  The daughter had hoped that her mother could look into some clinical trials to help her but was told that she was just too weak and there was nothing else they could do for her.  She was going to be put on hospice care...which means she will die within the next few months.  The daughter was quite obviously devastated.  I don't know exactly what was wrong with the mother or what kind of cancer she had.  But, I did take comfort in the fact that she was older and I hoped she has lived a full life.

Because Cancer Kills.  It's never easy to lose a loved one, but I feel sort of better when it's an elderly person.  I just hope they don't suffer - but at least they've lived their life, they had a chance to make it great.  It's when cancer takes someone too soon that it's particularly tragic.  Someone "younger" like me that still has a lot of life to live.  Or, God forbid, a child.  That's when I hate cancer the most.  Cancer isn't fair and it doesn't only pick on old people.  It doesn't care how old you are of how much life you still have to live.

There are no guarantees, of course, but that's why I'm sitting here in this chair today having poison put in my body.  To get MY chance of living a long life - to get MY chance at making it great!