Chemo Round 2, Day 3

God has been blessing me so far this time. Today is day 3. I get my next chemo tonight and tomorrow morning. This is officially "hump" day for me as I will have 3 of my 6 doses of chemo finished by the end of the day. So far I have tolerated it well. My appetite and my counts are OK with no other problems yet. Hopefully there will be less side effects than last time and I can still make it home next week for Michael's birthday. Dr. Lanzotti is still working on getting my second opinion in Chicago and should be able to make the phone call Friday. I hope to know when my appointment is by the time I get discharged.

I have been able to keep up my walks and breathing without too much trouble so far. I have been here long enough to have gotten to know some of the nurses and aides now and they know me. There are enough people here from Jacksonville or who know people from Jacksonville that I have met here as well. When I had my port put in, for example, one of the techs was a grand daughter of Helen Samples, who worked at Passavant for over 50 years! When Dr. Lanzotti was arranging my admission, the admissions clerk asked if I was the Dr. Fox from Jacksonville as she had lived there and heard I was a good doctor. I realize that I have spent 5 of the last 7-8 weeks here at Memorial. Hopefully when I go home this time, I can be home a little longer than I was over the Thanksgiving break.

They are still managing to make sure I do not get any prolonged sleep at night here. Last night I went to bed about midnight. They woke me up at 2 AM for my eye drops. Then they woke me at 4AM to weigh me and do my vitals. Then at 5 AM it was time to have my blood drawn. The next thing you know, it was morning and time to have my vitals and more eye drops. Oh well, that is what happens in the hospital. More encouragement to get well enough to go home. We have a cat and dog who wake us up at night a lot to prevent us from getting real rest! They have a habit of scratching at our bedroom door wanting to come in at all hours of the night. At least I am used to that!

I know they say that God only gives us what we can handle. I am just hoping he doesn't think I can handle more this time. It would be nice to have a little bit of a break after how sick I got the last time.

Doc