Chemo: Taxol
Treatment: #11 of 12 of Taxol
Companions: David Watkins
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Almost done. One more and I am almost done.
Today’s chemo treatment was longer than normal. The doctor (Dr. Picozzi filled in for Dr. Pinder today) was approximately 30 minutes late and it took longer than usual for the nurses to retrieve the Taxol from the pharmacy. David and I got out of the Virginia Mason a bit after 4:00 p.m.
Good news is that my peripheral neuropathy went away over the last week, so Dr. Picozzi suggested we go back up to full speed on my Taxol dose. If the neuropathy returns, we’ll decrease the Taxol dose for my last treatment. David was super cute today, checking in with me often about whether I was experiencing any neuropathy symptoms while I received today’s Taxol. I explained to David that the last (and only) time I experienced any neuropathy symptoms was on a Sunday, at the end of the week.
I had my last chemo treatment with Diane (my nurse) today, because she told me that she’ll be on vacation next Monday. It will be weird not having Diane there for my last treatment. I’ve gotten used to our sci-fi babble. Hell, BSG is supposed to start again soon and it will be weird not to be able to debrief with Diane about Jaime Bamber. I guess the bright side is that I won’t be receiving chemo anymore, right?
On another tangent, David and I ate lunch at Virginia Mason’s cafeteria before going to chemo, and I had a eye-opening moment at the sandwich bar. I almost ordered the daily sandwich special – club sandwich on foccacia — but decided on a different sandwich after noticing that the sandwich bar had complete nutritional information for the special. 980 calories for just the freaking sandwich!!! Thank you, Virginia Mason, for listing complete nutritional information for the food you serve. I wish more places would have that information easily accessible.
But back to business. I’m feeling ambivalent about coming to the end of this chemo journey. I know I should be happy to be done with chemo, but I’ve been doing this for so long now, I’m not sure how I’ll process looking at my Outlook calendar without half of my day on Mondays blocked out. It will be weird to enter the “hiatus” period where I just wait it out until my surgery and even weirder when I start radiation therapy, which will be every day. Hopefully the each new stage will be as smooth as chemo has been. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
