The Magic Number

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Romans 15:13

I am beginning to think that 12 might just be the magic number for outpatient chemo days. We left the house just after 8:30 this morning and got back home just after 8:30 this evening. I believe my dad has an all new understanding of why my mom and I are so tired on our MD Anderson days :) We started with blood work in the Leukemia "Fast-Track" Lab... let me tell you friends, it is anything, but the fast track :) We knew that it would be at least an hour before they were ready to review my labs and I had an appointment for an injection down the hall so we asked if we should do that first... of course they said yes. After waiting and hour and past my appointment time for my injection we checked with the nurse at the desk she then told us we had to do our review first (as much as we LOVE MD Anderson, there isn't always the best of communication between departments when you have multiple appointments) so we went back and waited again for my lab reviews. We were called by a nurse practitioner and reviewed my blood work, which all looked good, so then I went to get my shot. After that we signed in at the Transfusion Center for my chemo appointment then went down to the cafeteria for lunch. After lunch guess what we did... we waited. They were an hour behind on appointments so I was not able to get into a room for my chemo until after 2:30. You never really know what you are going to get when it comes to nurses in outpatient chemo, but thankfully we had a very sweet and patient nurse this time. They had had some problems with my PICC line getting blood earlier that they had to stick me for blood work and that meant if she couldn't get a blood return then she would have to "stick me" again to do my chemo (and for those of you that don't know I HATE needles!). Luckily she got it working after some moving around and readjusting. I had a new nurse do my lumbar puncture today, it went okay. I am not as sore as my last outpatient, but it did hurt quite a bit (I cried like a baby, poor nurse!). After laying flat for a while after LP, things were feeling better and the rituximab ran just fine. I am continuing to have headaches and the nurse practitioner thinks it is from my lumbar punctures. Please pray that these headaches will go away quickly!

After all of that we got home and walked into a yummy smelling kitchen thanks to a friend for bringing dinner and ate in silence because we were all tired and hungry. It helps so much to have meals on the days we spend at the hospital, thanks Dana! Now we are all relaxing and getting ready for bed thankful that there is no agenda for tomorrow!