Snow Day...

It’s a winter wonderland outside here in Denver today.  We’ve been under a blizzard warning all day and according to the news, we’ve received about 9 inches of snow.  Days like today are some of my favorite.  Normally I’d be home with my boys (John, Scott & Jackpot) and I probably would have done some baking.  Instead I’ve been hanging out with the amazing oncology nurses here at St. Joes Hospital.  Despite the crazy weather outside and not knowing whether or not they will be getting to go home at the end of their shift (due to road conditions & whether the next shift of nurses will be able to make it in to the hospital) they remain upbeat.  I have had my fair share of dealing with different types of nurses.  I work with ER nurses on a daily basis at work, psych nurses, and when we had Scott here at this same hospital we had several lovely Labor and Deliver nurses, but I can honestly say, Oncology nurses ROCK!  They are truly a different breed.  Every single nurse and CNA that I have had contact with here on the oncology floor over the past week has been absolutely incredible.  They are genuine, caring, upbeat, and funny!  I believe they are angels here on earth!

Today I finished my “Hawaiian Punch” bag of red chemo.  My nurse, Grace, took this last bag of chemo down from my IV pole this morning!  So, Phase A of “Round 1” is done.  J  It makes it sound like a ‘boxing match’ with different “rounds” but I’ve got lots of fight still and I’m ready to keep going. (Ding Ding).  I am still so thankful that I haven’t had any of the nausea/vomiting side effects (thank goodness for Zofran).  My team has been awesome to make sure that I’ve been “pre-medicated” to ward off as many side effects as possible.  Today the fatigue has started to hit harder, and I admit that I’m really starting to feel tired.  The beauty about today is that even if I was home and not here in the hospital, I’d have likely been curled up on the couch and enjoying the snow and stayed inside.  Instead, I rested in my room and got to see how quiet downtown gets when the snow shuts it down.   I miss my boys at home, but I know they are doing just fine (they have a serious bachelor pad thing going on right now and it makes me giggle thinking about how things might be looking at the house right about now) J lol. 

My docs say that my “counts” continue to look like they expect and that in the next 3 day we should see my body really start to react to the chemotherapy.  My red blood cells are still just hanging above the threshold for a transfusion but the doc said that we’ll likely schedule a transfusion in the next 2 days because they don’t want them to drop too low.  Tomorrow I’ll start a new medication (an injection) that should help my white blood cell production as it tries to rebound from the chemotherapy agents.  

-Chellie