Coming off a nice weekend

I really had a nice weekend from a personal perspective. My friend Sharon was here Friday night. She cooked a great dinner for us, and then she and I just talked for hours. I have not seen her much since she moved to TN, so it was wonderful to catch up just like old times.

Sharon and I gabbed till about midnight, and when Bob came up to be I noticed a problem with the wound vacuum. It was not holding pressure at all. We called the equipment owners, and they walked Bob through a bunch of diagnostic testing, and while there was a slight problem there, it appeared the bigger problem was with a blockage in the wound. We ended up having to call Nurse Kathy about 1:30am Saturday morning. She was camping with her family at Lake Alatoona, and the campsite locks everyone in (and everyone else out) at 11pm so she could not come out here. She gave us instructions about how to patch me up till morning. KCI, who owns the equipment and Kathy were both out fixing me up first thing Saturday morning. Needless to say we got no sleep Friday, so I was pretty wasted till about 4pm on Saturday. Bob and I went to Publix as we had Michael, Michelle and kids coming at 6pm.


They came with 2 of the kids, Landon and Elise, and it was a great visit. They cooked a great dinner and friend Susan sent over an incredible peach cobbler for our dessert. Friends Mitzi and Steve, Jody and Michael dropped by after dinner for a couple of hours, and it was a very nice evening. I was up and out of the bed from about 4pm to midnight which is a long day for me. It was really fun, and I held up pretty well. I need more of these kind of days.

Around noon I noticed some leakage on my leg from the tubing and the wound vac machine. We had to get Nurse Kathy out again last Sunday, and she had to remove the sponge (it really hurts to do that) and repack the wound. I am still not sure what caused the problem (the machine people blame the nursing staff, and the nursing staff blame the machine). Kathy was due out here this morning to change the sponge out anyway so she just did it Sunday instead. For some reason, I was really uncomfortable after she left and very sore -- still am a bit. While there are no signs of infection she thinks the surgeon will want to see me this week after he gets her report (more info than I want to go into--not bad-- just medical junk). I just hope whatever he wants to do does not delay my chemo scheduled to start next Monday.

I am better today than I was last night but I am feeling a bit "blue". I know how lucky I am with the prognosis, but I am tired of everything being a hassle and a problem. Enough, already. We are getting to the end, so these irritations need to just go away! So I am kind of down today, but I will get over it. Friend and co=worker is coming over at 3 to take me to get a headset for my new cell phone -- for some reason the company switched us from Verizon to Sprint. Then we have a conference call at 4pm. I am going to try to take a quick nap before she comes as I could never get comfortable and get any decent sleep last night. Tomorrow is my big teeth cleaning day! Yea.

Just not used to this!

I grew up with sort of a "work hurt" mentality. Even if I was sick, I sucked it up and went to work anyway. With the exception of surgical procedures, etc., I'll bet I have not called in "sick" 5 or 6 times in 25 years. I don't have kids to pick up a lot of bugs and bring them home, so I am sure that helped too. To have a stupid fever just bowl me over like this really makes me mad!

Today, I went to the clinic for another round of Vanq - one of the two antibiotics I am taking till they can figure out what is wrong with me. This one has to be administered through an IV. While I was in the middle of the round, they got the cultures back, and those that Vanq fights were negative, so they stopped the IV. I got to go home, and I do not have to go back till Monday. They did determine that my port is not infected, which is really good news. They may have had to take it out and put it in on the other side; however a pain, that would have given me matching slits in my chest, I guess. I seem to be either responding to this other antibiotic, or I just have a viral infection that has run its course. Either way, my fever is down (normal tonight) thank goodness. Now I just have to stay healthy till Monday so I can get round 2 started.

I think I am about to go into "Howard Hughes mode". Bob thinks it is about time. I do not want to do anything to expose myself to any kind of germ that could possibly delay chemo again. So I am going into hybernation for a while. Now may be time to sell the Publix stock, cause I will not be going back for a while. I guess with the stock market slide a couple of days ago, it may be a little late to sell!

I am not quite at the point of getting all my visitors to wear a mask yet, but I have some, and I can see it coming. So if you come over, please don't be offended if I greet you at the door and hand you one. No more hugs or handshakes either, I'm afraid.

I feel about a million times better than I did on Tuesday, but I am still getting tired really easily. This is disappointing to me because chemo was 21 days ago, my counts are good, and I was counting on feeling really good this week. I have not had much appetitite this week and have lost about 10 or 12 pounds. I don't think I have ever had 103F fever, before so I am just shocked at what it can do to you -- that coupled with chemo I suppose is a double whammy. I have been able to get some work done - again in my pj's and sometimes in the bed, but it works. I am planning on a really good day tomorrow - but all inside my house. Just a little more than 2 months ago, I thought I was running the world, or my little corner of it, from my company car, laptop and cell phone. It is strange how things can change so quickly and without warning. So for a while, I will have to just run my world with the phone and laptop. Will I ever get to show off this wig? I will at least model it for you if you come by, but no touching!