Turning the corner

I am starting to feel much better today - still a little queasy and not much appetite. I slept till 4am (good for me) and was up for just a little while and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. Bob also found me some earplugs last night so that help block the noise from this darn machine.

I will start chemo again on Aug 27 -- same routine - 4 day treatment, 7.5 hours per day. And I always need fluids on the 5th day, so it really is a whole week. If all goes well and I stay on schedule the last treatment will begin on Sept 17 and then I am done. Dr. Saba ( chemo doc) took me off the blood thinner shots today after 6 months of Bob "shooting" me in the belly. The other good news is he is not going to make me have a port and will give me the chemo through a PICC line. Between now and 8/27 I will have a mugascan on my heart to see how it held up since the last one -- just before I started chemo the first time. Also, there will be another chest CT. Putting the PICC line in is a surgical procedure but is pretty easy. I have already done it twice before.

Nurse Kathy was out today doing her sponge vac thing to me. She did not hurt me too bad today till the end. There is still something of a leak so it is noisy, but Bob is working on that and the earplugs help. She thinks I am healing well and may not need this thing but a couple more weeks. Then they go to some other alternate way to finish up healing the wound. I am just not sure what. While the machine great for healing, it is annoying and cumbersome. She says I really can't drive with it as there is too much opportunity to get the hose caught on something and pulling it out. Even if I could get out I think I will have to be selective about where I go. For one thing, we don't think the battery pak is lasting as long as it should because of the leak, so I don't need to be unplugged for more than a couple of hours. I am pretty sure a restaurant would not appreciate the noise either. It has been over 6 months since I have been out to eat. I guess a few more weeks can't hurt. I am not really interested in food anyway.

I would like to get out for about an hour each day, and I have a few friends that will take me to run errands. I figure tomorrow or Sunday I can get out for a few minutes anyway -- in a car with a great AC. It is just too hot.

Have a good weekend. Mine has to better than the last one!