Back in the Hole!

(3/3/08)

Well, my counts were pretty good today, so I guess the three units of blood helped some. Supposedly I should have felt better after the transfusion, but I didn't notice too much change. I guess my paleness went away - I also had a pretty active week, which may have had to do with the blood as well. Lessee, after spending the bulk of Monday and Tuesday getting my transfusions, I went to restorative yoga on Wed, tai chi on Wed night, had dinner with a friend after that, went climbing on Thursday night, spent the day on campus on Friday, saw "Juno" that night (great flick), had brunch on Sat, went to the Hiller Aviation Museum afterwards, went to Davis that night for dinner with a friend who was in town, and on Sun, had dim sum, went climbing and to a different yoga class (offered at the climbing gym). Whew!

Now I'm back in the hospital for a few days, getting the VAC (Vincristine/Adriamycin/Cyclophosphamide). For some reason, every time I come in as an in-patient, it takes FOREVER to get the chemo actually started. Today we got to the patient ward around 11 and they didn't start the chemo until almost 4pm. I guess they need to wait for the orders to come through and the pharmacy to mix the drugs and such. Still, it's kind of annoying that I come in here and have to sit around for hours. The nurse just hung my Adriamycin bag (around 5pm), so now I've got 48 hours to wait til I get out of here. Luckily, after five of these VAC cycles, I'll stop getting Adriamycin and this set of drugs will only take one day. The other set (IE - Ifosfamide/Etoposide) will still take 4 days, but I may move to out-patient for that one eventually. The out-patient schedule is fairly grueling, though - you basically have to come in at 7am every day for 12 hours. Still, I suspect it might be better than staying in the hospital. We'll see.