Two days in...

and I am still here! But, there have been some bumps along the road.

New catheter was placed yesterday, with more conscious memory of the whole thing than I'd hoped for (the nurses too). But it is done, and I am hardly traumatized at all (I am getting tough!!). I just let out a little yell when he pushed the thing through my chest cavity...So success! I am feeling the usual pain of surgery again, and last night brought back memories of nights after surgery...Michael helping me get in and out of bed, getting me pain meds, comforting me sweetly when I jolt awake from some nightmare. He is so amazing, I can't imagine having a better husband, really I feel like won the lottery finding him. I just feel sorry for him that he doesn't get much sleep. And, it is sad, we were talking last night and couldn't recall how many nights we've had like this anymore...We are getting good at just dealing with it, and not bringing the emotion with it. So that is good--progress!

So today, mom, my excellent, most awesome daytime caregiver, comes and gets me at 7AM for our first chemo appointment. All goes smoothly to start, they hook me up to IV fluids, give me IV anti-nausea meds, and steroids. Just when the nurse practitioner walked up to check on me, the infusion nurse comes in and pushes a syringe of benedryl in my line. Immediately I begin to feel really weird, my heart starts racing, I get really dizzy and have to hold my head because I feel like it is going to explode, or my eyes will bug out, or I will let out screams of panic, tear off my IVs and take off running through the hallways. I could barely talk, and my words sounded garbled. And then I started uncontrollably shivering all over my body and was freezing cold. It was really really scary. Fortunately the team of nurses there are right on top of things, the nurse practitioner held my hand, my mom came by me and put her hands on my shoulder. She could relate as this type of adverse drug reaction happened to her with novocaine at the dentist. I remembered just thinking to breathe this out, breathe this out. So I would close my eyes and take deep breaths and imagine I was on a sunny beach. I kept being ripped away from that beach in fear, but came back to it, and the breath. Meanwhile the nurses are putting oxygen on me, doing and EKG, and taking my temperature and blood pressure (159/99)!! and then give me some IV Ativan. That also helped me come out of this scary time. And now it is all over my chart says all over it not to give me IV benedryl ever again...

The bad news though is that I find out in the middle of all this that they also worry about my reaction being a display of a systemic infection. If there were a bacterial infection in my line, they could have pushed it into the blood stream with the benedryl dose. The onset of symptoms can be just as fast, which is partly why I have to have a 24/7 caregiver. (I couldn't have driven myself anywhere during that). They kept taking my temperature and it went from 98.4 to 98.9 to 99.7 even though I was shivering so much. They said shivering was a sign of infection. SO, they hooked me up pronto to IV antibiotics just in case. They took blood to culture, but that won't be ready for 48 hours.

So needless to say, they didn't do chemo on me today. I had a day of lots of drugs, just no chemo. :( I was pretty bummed out, feeling depressed because the last thing I wanted to do was create such a dramatic scene on my first day here. I also didn't want to get off schedule. But none of this can be helped. I just need to be grateful that that horrible feeling DIDN'T last and I didn't need to be admitted to the hospital. They are taking precautions by waiting because if it is an infection, the last thing I need is chemo to hurt my immunity. So I trust these nurses and doctors and go with the flow.

So I moved out of the scary part, it did end. :)

Mom and I spent a bit of time de-stressing and reminding ourselves that this will just all be as it is, and it will be perfect. Everything will be OK, right mom!? It is okay that the schedule is off, it is okay that I took all these extra drugs for nothing (or maybe not if it was an infection!). Then, I dig out my ipod and listen to Adayshanti's Meditation CD on "let everything be as it is" and I drift in an out of drug induced sleep haze with his calm voice in the background.

And then my drips are done, and we go home! Mom is here with me now--babysitting day two. Yesterday we tackled laundry, today Mom is cleaning up the kitchen disaster leftover from 3 days with a clogged sink (Michael finally got it fixed this morning after a late night with a hired plumber...) So she is busy-bodying herself while I lie on the sofa still feeling like I got chemo, but didn't...makes you realize how much these other drugs can make you feel like poo too...

So I am good. I feel proud of myself for not freaking out and causing a scene...I was so very on the verge of having a panic attack, but I talked myself down. Well, I guess I did cause a scene just from all of the medical attention, but I didn't cry (I think there was one tear..). I just breathed, in and out, in and out. And closed my eyes and held on. And I made it through the other side.