Nurse, can you shut her UP!

Holy cow can some people talk.  And I'll get to that in a minute.

So I'm at at 4:30 this morning after a sleepless night heading in for my first 6 hour chemo drip with a side order of radiation at 6pm.  I start the day at 6:30am with 3 hours of consultations followed by the drip followed by 3 hours of waiting for the radiation machine to melt my innards.  My good friend Dan Martin mercifully drove me in at 5am to get there on time and my brother in law John picked my up at dusk when I was ready.

The consultations were typical any pain, any issues (yeah, I have this lump in my throat...), any questions.  Take blood, urine, and my height and weight 3 times.  I asked "do you expect me to shrink in height too?  This is something I wasn't told ahead of time.  Can you at least keep me over 6'?"

Ok, it's about 9:00 am and I sit down in the lazy boy to get my drip.  Suzanne, my waitress, orders me up a couple fancy looking saline solutions and some potassium and magnesium sides to get me going before the chemo.  Delicious.  All is going just ducky.  Nice view of a building going up across the street which was interesting, a helicopter landing on the hospital roof was cool to watch too.  However what is really tickling my fancy is the 4 hour nap i'm about to drop on them while they drip in me.

But no.  Lo and behold who sits next to me but Oprah Freaking Winfrey.  Holy cow can this lady talk!  The poor thing just had the chicken salad but it was 'just a touch on the dry side', that coupled with the chips that were too salty sent her right over the edge.  And from that point on it was too warm, then too cold, another pillow please, take one of these away.  I mean come on.  Her husband and daughter were there too.  I loved her father, he didn't say boo.  He just looked at me like he wanted to say "if I stand near a window, would you mind pushing?"  I smiled and he knew I was saying "tell you what, I'll hold your hand on the way down!"

That's alright, I snuck in a couple hours, did a couple work calls when awake, emails etc..  It's a long time to sit and do nothing I'll tell you.  I continue to get emails from friends (and all my coworkers are in my friend category from this point forward who contact me with well wishes), and family.

Honestly right now all is good.  As I write this I am two days out from the chemo and the past few hours I have just been overwhelmed with a tired feeling like where your legs feel like lead weights and your head is the same.  They told me it was coming.  They don't lie there.  Nausea not horrible but enough to cause discomfort so far.  The worst pain I felt was my first radiation trip they saddled me down, locked me in and THEN put in Rascal Flatts.  I mean that's just pouring salt in the wound.  I can't stand his voice.  All was set straight day two when Mr Bob Seger paid a visit to the cd player!

I saw my much OLDER sister in law is joining the commentary in my blog and has threatened/promised to share funny stories about my past.  I'm sure with the people reading this they will all cast a positive light on me since the people who control my career may be reading this as well.  And did I mention how wonderful my entire management team is?  Here's a good place to remind everyone.

One last funny one.  I have to take a chill pill when i do radiation because i don't handle the whole locked down on the board with my face squished underneath a hard plastic shield that doesn't let you move an inch while someone 100 feet away shoots laser beams at me in a space invaders like game.  They fed me a bunch of stuff in the IV as well today for nausea which makes you drowsy, then I took the other drug that does the same and headed down to radiation.  Suzanne says, "who's driving you".  I said "you're looking at him, why".  Suzanne's says "but you just took two drugs to make you drowsy how can you drive".  I said, you gave me the same drugs you gave that 120lb woman over there.  I expect to be able to handle it.  If I can't, I won't drive.  I don't feel drousy, just takes the edge off.  Then I pointed to the bottle that said, 'if driving, use caution' and smiled.  All's good if the drug company says so right!

Thanks everyone for the awesome words of encouragement, the posts and the support.  It helps, it helps, it helps!!!  It helps more than you will ever know.  And as this gets worse, which is is going to get, please keep em coming!  Thanks.