The Stillroom

the meeting.

Yesterday’s meeting with Dr. Fenton was great. She is going to help me try and get another two years and cant make any guarantees for three. There is a lot of information and things I have to start to do to be ready to have the port put in next week. This prep starts with stopping the blood thinner Eloquis and today I have to start to give myself injections of Lovanox to keep the blood thinner out. I have never done anything like this before so it will be, as usual, a little scary. They make it sound easy. Just pinch the belly fat (to which mine is slowly leaving me) and put the little needle in and push the syringe. Ok. That’s what I will do. I did have a major hassle getting the prefilled syringes though. What a day. CVS didn’t have what I needed and said they “should be in tomorrow ” My Medicare would have covered it if they had it. Now, the weekend is almost upon us and I can’t roll with “should.” It would throw all of next week off. So, I had to call the Dr. and the nurse helped to track it down and Walmart had it but then it cost a hundred dollars. I had no choice but to pay for what should have been free. I’m grateful I have what I need now to continue this fight. My other half will be coming home tomorrow (hopefully) and he will have a drainage tube running out of his abdomen to continue to heal his wound from his procedure. It is a weird little tube with a ball the size of an avacado that catches what comes out. I asked him what if the cat sees it? I mean, a plastic tube with a ball attached? This could be trouble. Lol since he will be somewhat incapacitated for another week, my sister will be taking me to have the port put in then I have to wear some sort of Fanny pack that will have meds inside I guess. I’m not exactly sure what that is. There was so much information coming at me, I’ll know what it is when it happens. I’m starting to feel a bit more discomfort around my stomach and back but can still function ok. I can still walk and drive where I need to be. I have all of my nausea medicine in place. The doctor said a lot of patients tolerate the chemo quite well so hopefully, I’ll be one of those people. She said people get tired, I will lose my hair, I have to mask up everywhere. I think will look for my Alfred E Neumann mask. I bought it at the beginning of the pandemic. This might be a good time to wear it. The time is 3:30 a.m. and I’m going to try and get back to sleep. I think a good podcast usually helps me fall back to sleep. So this is day what, thirty seven? The picture is from my library. It is a reflection of the tree in my backyard a couple of springs ago. I thought it was cool.

First shot. I have been taken off of my blood thinner and for the next few day I have to give myself a shot on my “side fat” as I sit. I was so nervous but I did it. It didn’t hurt. The usual pinch, plunge and done. Glad that first one is over with.

Today, I am donating to Toys for Tots. One of the things I enjoyed ordering for the holiday season every year was to find old fashioned stocking stuffers. There is a relatively local company called Channel Craft and all of their toys are made in the USA. One of the toys that folks loved were old school jacks and number puzzles. My sister and I would play jacks on concrete or in our wood porch until the sides of our hands were scratched up from scooping up jacks. The number games used to be made of ivory! So glad they stopped that horrid practice. They were the little square, framed games and you could mix the numbers up by moving them around within the frame. We spent hours playing with these simple toys. They were always a huge hit with the boomers as they brought back those sweet memories. I had some left over from last Christmas and this past January, when I decided to downsize the shop, I had them packed away, not really knowing where they would end up. Well, now I know. So I’m going to put them in the Toys for Tots building next to our local grocery store. It is a pretty nice haul.

I’ll post a picture. They are so cute!

Great for counting and dexterity too!