So what takes so long??

October 5th Tuesday 

So why does it take so long? 

I got to chemo at noon today.  Chair#2. 

This place is very busy, which to me is kind of sad.  

Next week i have to go in at noon, but have my blood taken at the lab because they won’t have a chair for me right away.   Since Monday is a holiday, they will be closed, so they have to squeeze more people into four days somehow.  I also get two drugs next week so i will be there even longer. 

I was only there three hours today but the actual infusion only took an hour.  This is how it goes:

First they take blood using my port.  The I get weighed. I gained back some of the weight I lost during the Bathroom Olympics in the first and second weeks, but I am still less than I've been in ages. 

( I wonder how long I can keep that up- I AM eating!). Then we wait for the labs to come back.  Chemo nurse Allie comes to chat, checks me with her stethoscope.  Then labs come back. This time she told me my potassium is low.  I have gotten that frequently but not here. So I got a potassium drink ( like yuccky Tang!)  and she sent prescription for pills for a week.   I take other pills- 2 steroids instead of 3, a benedryl and a pepcid.  Says chemo will be in 20-30 minutes.  I am waiting.  Ate my IKEA sandwich.  I get bread and a cup of tuna, mayo and chips and i put it together.  I hear the woman next to me give her birthdate  She is ninety eight!! 

All the nurses look alike to me.  All female, cute, young, long hair and glasses and one really thin blonde.  Then there are the volunteers who are, of course, much older.  They walk around and ask if we need anything.  And there is a male pharmacist who seems to be at least 6’7”.