A Glass Hammer and a Bag of Nothing

That's me. Useless. Bad blogger. No doughnut.

Round two of chemo went by with little event or trauma. Five days of hanging out in the hospital, getting my poison, discovering an addiction to crossword puzzles, and watching cable tv. My biggest issue was a narsty case of indigestion I developed in The Big House that has followed me home like a gassy little puppy. So if I were to be classified as a celestial body, I'd be a Gas Giant. Me and Jupiter.

This recovery process has been weird. I'm not in the hospital where I lie about all day getting tending to and poked by medical professionals. I'm enjoying the comforts of home, but also being home, I have a hard time just being a slug and letting my body get better. I want to do stuff. Plus, try explaining "recovery process" to a toddler. The first two days I was home, I was pretty much a zombie. I had Adrian stay home with me on Thursday so I could sleep all day.

One of the side effects of my treatment is Nasty Mouth. The pervasive taste in my mouth has been that of sucking on ball bearings. This charming metallic taste worsens when I eat or drink anything. Drinking plain water is the worst; it's like I've licked the inside of a faucet. Get the picture? Coupled with my raging indigestion, eating and drinking hasn't been a pleasurable experience as of late. (But for some strange reason, Taco Bell bean and cheese burritos are the only food product I crave constantly that don't exacerbate either my Nasty Mouth or my Crazy Intestines.)

This is how I came to be severely dehydrated on Friday.

I woke up, ready to be off for a long day at the Dalton Clinic, or as I like to call it, Cancerville. I knew I was prepping for a blood transfusion (PLEASE GIVE BLOOD!) Friday; my doc assumed that my hemoglobin would probably be low. Every unit of blood I receive takes at least two hours to complete. This timeframe however does not include all the hospital rigamorole I have to go through before the transfusion even begins.

Back to Friday morning. After waking, I soon discovered that I couldn't walk across the room without nearly fainting. I could barely stand without swooning. Good times. My mother-in-law arrived to look after Little A for the morning, saw I was in this state, and called my doctor. They of course wanted me down at the Clinic ASAP and suggested an ambulance. My response: Um. No. My dad showed up to ferret me down to Cancerville, I sucked up, drank some water, felt moderately better, dressed, and got to Cancerville without the charming services of Lakeside Volunteer Rescue.

After what seemed like an enormous wait once my blood was drawn, the White Coat Folks decide to give me some fluids which perked me right up like the Water of Lourdes. They also decided to pump me full of two units of platelets and two units of blood (Don't forget to GIVE BLOOD!). Platelets take about a half an hour a unit to completely transfuse. Remember what I said about the time involved with a blood transfusion? It was going to take so stinking long to finish my treatment that I ended up being transferred to an entirely different part of the hospital to get my two units of blood. (Which really was fine because when I was in Cancerville getting my platelets, there was a woman in the room next to me retching her guts out loudly. The whole time. Guh. Plus this other unit had television in the rooms.)

On Friday, I got to Cancerville at about 10 a.m. My dad got me home at about 9:30 p.m. that night. God bless my saint of a mother-in-law who stayed nearly the whole time.

Needless to say, I've stocked up on a variety of beverages to help hydrate my Big Stupid Butt, including a return to a long lost favorite, Blue PowerAde, and yummy fruit nectars.

Oh and what was the first piece of mail to greet me upon returning home Friday? A freaking summons for jury duty. Federal court, too. I've been thinking about writing "Leukemia, bitches" on the back when I send it in to be excused.