That Went Well!

A quick re-cap, for those who have long ago forgotten the first part: On Sunday, March 6 we spent the whole day at the IPOP and Jon got a full day of chemo to start the process.  Then he gave himself shots for a week and we waited a long time for the stem cells to be numerous enough for harvesting, and that took more days than we had hoped. In the meantime, Jon got pneumonia and had to go into the hospital for about a week to get a long dose of antibiotics. Then we went home for two weeks to finish up the course of antibiotics.  We just got back to Hopkins this morning and we are 2 1/2 weeks behind schedule, but we are once more moving forward. Hallelujah.

We arrived on time for his 8:30 appointment and parked our car full of food and clothes and books in the garage because we didn't have housing yet.

The appointment was uneventful -- first the daily blood draw, then the wait for the results, then an infusion of decadron, some potassium (always low on potassium), some nausea meds.  Then finally they sent up the chemo -- you can tell when it's chemo time when the nurse puts on a yellow gown and two pairs of gloves and two nurses read the numbers aloud to each other to be double sure they are poisoning the right customer. With the right poison.

In the IPOP, which is one big room with beds and chairs all around the perimeter, there are patients and caregivers sitting in chairs or lounging in daybeds. The nurses are like the pollinator bees, going from one flower to the next. The flowers are generally dozing, attached to their IV lines. The caregivers are either knitting (me) or reading or asking lots of questions of the nurses.  I can talk more about this later when I run out of stories to tell -- if all goes well, every day might be very much like the last. If all goes well, this will be boring. 

We moved into our smaller space (same furniture, same decor, fewer amenities) at 1:30 and it is all too familiar. The exact same couch. Jon has been on the phone with people about planter parts, he has talked to Benjamin and Stephen and Michael about completely different topics, and I have been kibbitzing in the background. Now he is calling Lowe's about the price of electrical wire... I will stay out of this one.


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