Docs had a phone conference to make sure I had all of my tests completed and legitimized, yada yada. He talked about HLA typing, and it doesn't seem that Sloan Kettering is on the same page as HUMC. Something to clarify later with both hospitals.
So then the true waiting game began. We bounced around to three different waiting rooms. Which you know, is ALWAYS fun. Didn't actually get chemo until five o'clock or thereabouts. They accessed my port, grabbed a handful of blood (vials of blood, that is) and pre-treated me with fluids, Zofran, and Dexomethosone. I needed something to eat, so I asked for some OJ and crackers, which I shared with Nate. They hooked up the bendamustine and I was out of there an hour later, feeling "slorshy". The nurse, Joann, told me to report at 3 the next day for more slorshy goodness. We grabbed a cab back to Penn Station, grabbed a quick bite at a Moe's inside the station and grabbed the train back to Trenton through thunderstorms. After another uneventful trainride, aside from the bouncing, jostling train car which made the slorsh slorsh even more, that is.
Got home around 10:30 feeling slorshed out, flushed, and had a bit of a headache. I did sleep well despite the weird dreams which I do not remember and the rock hard erections that kept waking me up. I've had that happen before with chemo. It's actually one of the "better" side-effects when I am able to use it for what is intended. When I'm not, it's like I overdosed on VJuice from TrueBlood.
Day Two of the clinical trial was really a lot more of the same as Day One, except no surprising flesh drills. I did notice that a) my arms were healing and not as itchy from that damnable eczema stuff, nor b) was I coughing as much. Probably an attribution from the Dexamethosone rather than the Bendamustine, though Doc Hamelin did tell me that it starts working within the first two treatments, so I am very hopeful about that. Oh, another thing I was told is that they are continuing to check on HLA matches, even with cord blood, but they are undecided about a second Allo transplant - they want to see how the Bendamustine works and possibly put off the transplant for another time or maybe never is need-be. They want to weigh everything positive and negative. So it just means yet another uncertainty in my treatment. Still looking for a match, though, just in case.
So I waited four hours in the waiting areas of Sloan-Kettering after uneventful drives, train journeys, and wild cab rides until I was moved to yet another area and had my chemo started at 6:15 PM. From 2:45 to 6:15 is not four hours, it's only 3:30, but it was still an inconvenience. Left feeling slorshy again, but not as much as I had packed water, almonds, fig newtons, and teriyaki jerky with me. Trust me, I know exactly what to bring to chemotherapy. I'm a frikkin expert. I slept the hour of Bendamustine. They knew I was pissed because they didn't drip it, they let is drizzle in. It made my head a little bloated, but it got me out faster.
I wasn't able to visit Carmen in the city this time, but next time. I took another wild ride to Penn Station, and a ride on Transit beck to Trenton that wasn't slorshy but was fairly crowded. I worked on outlines for Hamlet, as well as other projects for home improvement and other things, so it wasn't as unproductive as the day before.Another night of sleep, another flushed face, another bout of all-night stiffies.
One round of chemo down, five more to go. Cancer, you're one done SOB.
Did you like this one? I have more coming. Leave me a buck! or fifty cents. or twenty-thousand dollars. I don't mind.
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