ugh. could I get some retroactive mojo please?

Today's chemo was less-than-great. I had a feeling from the beginning that our nurse was new, because she didn't quite know where things were in the drawers and cabinets. I was glad she took her time to do things right, but that slowness just gave me more time to think about it. First, she used the wrong size needle and had to find another vein with a smaller one. Normally I look away and grit my teeth while they stick me, and when I looked down, there was blood on the cotton pad, the IV tube, and my fingers. Not bleeding, just blood. I had to wash my hand to get it off. So just add that to the snowball that's accumulating.

The first drug isn't an IV drip, but rather is pushed from a large syringe inserted into the IV tube. This nurse had only done drips before, not pushes, so another nurse was to supervise her. And by "supervise" I mean "give step-by-step instructions." This was further unsettling, but I tried not to think about it because of the aforementioned snowball.

Speaking of frozen things, I have to eat ice chips or popsicles during the administration of this drug, to keep it out of the mouth and prevent mouth sores later on. I got through a few spoonfuls of ice, about half way though the first syringe, when I realized the ice wouldn't go down and I told them I felt nauseous. They got me a bucket, and by this point I was in full-on "habitually swallowing saliva in a vain attempt to keep it down" mode. I heaved, but all that came out was gas. Lunch was 2-3 hours prior, so there was nothing to bring up, but once I got that gas out I was able to calm down.

This has never happened before, and I'm pretty well sure it was an anxiety attack, snowballing from the various little things that had made me nervous. Since I had been given anti-nausea drugs first, and since this never happened before, I'm pretty sure it was the anxiety that did it. Plus, I had nauseous anxiety attacks in college that were very much like this, so I know the feeling.

On the plus side, today's chest X-ray showed no cancer at all. That doesn't mean it's gone, just that it's not big enough to show up on the X-ray; we still have to keep going to get rid of the rest and make sure it's completely gone.

round 4

There isn't really anything new to report; round 4 went as well as the others. Friday wasn't quite as blah as previous Fridays, but I still stayed home from work, partially for the mental break and partially for the chest/back pains as a result of the Neupogen that only seemed to be relieved when I lay* down. I also have to be very particular about what I eat on said Fridays, because few things sound appetizing enough to break me out of my mental indecision. Today, I'm accompanying three students at solo & ensemble contest, so obviously I'm alert enough to play the piano. For the most part, the chemo isn't really inhibiting my usual routine, which is good.

*Yes that's right, I used the proper past tense of "lie" even though I think it's one of the least intuitive and most inconsistent conventions in the American English language. Don't even get me started on the rule about periods and commas inside quotation marks. :)

whirlwind weekend wicked taco trip to toronto

Back in November I mentioned my "taco friends" and I were planning a trip to New York City to see the new musicals Wicked and Avenue Q. We planned for Martin Luther King weekend, since most of us would already have that Monday off work, but I found out Idina Menzel -- the awesome musical actress playing the role of the Wicked Witch -- would be leaving the cast the weekend prior to that. Since we wouldn't be able to see Idina anyway, we decided to put it off until the weather's nicer... and also, that entire weekend sold out by the time we got around to finding tickets.

The national tour of Wicked begins this spring in Toronto and this summer in Chicago. Toronto being closer than New York City, we opted for the former and will be driving there Saturday, April 23rd and coming back the next day. Hence the title of this post.

I've always liked Toronto the few times I've been there, so it'll be nice to go back, even for just a brief stay. And besides, if we were going to NYC, I'd want to spend more than 24 hours there and see other stuff beyond Broadway. We'll go there another time to see Avenue Q I'm sure, since it won't be touring anywhere (although they're also running a production in Las Vegas coming this year).