Today Neil and I made arrangements for my five-year-old to get a little tour of the Huntsman Cancer Hospital where I'm being treated. Every Cancer patient there is assigned a social worker who assists them and family members in whatever way they need and mine agreed to take Elijah around, show him the infusion room, explain some of the things that go on up there, etc. I think he is handling everything just fine. Mostly because at the ripe old age of five, his most urgent concerns have either something to do with the remote-controlled helicopter he is sure he is getting for Christmas, or whether or not he gets two or three caramels in his lunch. So, needless to say, my Cancer hasn't been much more than a bit of a distraction for him, which is how I think I'd like to keep it, but I still wanted to make sure he had a picture in his head of what was going on when I kept going off to the hospital so he wouldn't be too worried.
After Elijah saw everything he was interested in (the view from the top floor, the crane being used on the new wing of the hospital, the ice cream shop, you know, all the super important stuff), we walked down to the inpatient area of the hospital. After I'm done with chemo, this is where I'll be having my surgery. The Huntsman Hospital is relatively small since its focus is exclusively on Cancer patients. There are two floors with inpatient rooms, one is for surgery patients, the other is for patients in need of more aggressive chemo/radiation treatments that may require an extended stay. Each of those floors has no more than 25 rooms and they are beautiful. The one we went in had the bed in the center of a large room. Directly in front of the bed was a large flat screen television mounted on the wall. To the left of that was a small built-in desk with a phone and beyond that was a private bathroom. To the other side of the bed was a small living room type area complete with three easy chairs, a big picture window with the view of the mountains, and art hung on the walls. I guess if you have to have surgery, you may as well do it in style.
It was a nice day. When we got home I realized I've survived the first week of my second chemo cycle. (Yay! Six more to go!) I think this one has been a little easier. I learned a lot from the first cycle. The first 5 or 6 days after infusion have been the most critical for me. Those are the days when not only the Chemo is wreaking havoc on your entire body, but your body is also trying to deal with some of the not so pleasant side effects of all those wonderful anti-nausea medications. During the first cycle, that first week was miserable. I was exhausted, had constant, horrible heartburn, and plenty of other fun digestive issues. They tell you to drink as much water as possible in order to flush as much of the toxins from your body as possible because to let them sit in your body can cause problems in your liver and other organs down the road. So, that means on top of everything else, you're running to the bathroom every 45 minutes.
So this time around, I tried things a little different, and without going into a whole lot of boring details, I think I have a routine figured out that minimizes everything except the heartburn. So if any of you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. My doctors have told me to get Prilosec, but I'm really trying to find some natural remedies first. I'm tired of pumping my system full of drugs to alleviate side effects of other drugs. And yet, even as I'm writing that, I'm realizing that it seems a little silly to get hung up on a fairly mild drug like Prilosec to treat heartburn, when I have consented to allow doctors to pump toxic waste directly into my veins every other week for four months. Hmmm.... Okay, tomorrow I'm off to the drug store. Have a beautiful weekend everyone.
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