Did you ever hear the one about the bicycle pump and the catapult?

OK. Chemo went well. Read the whole post. I type this up funny for a reason folks, don’t skip to the end. It’s like reading the first chapter of a murder mystery and going to the end to find out who done it. It’s just not right. These aren’t cliff notes. Read the whole thing.
So, bicycle pumps and catapults.
Actually, we’ll get to that in a minute. First I’ll tell you about this weekend. It was a great weekend. It was loud, and busy and crowded and insane. It was a smaller egg hunt than usual - only 80 kids. We got up ridiculously early, hid the eggs, and then I assigned tasks. I had Brian and his cohorts working on parking duty. This is actually a new feature of the egg hunt. Three years ago we had some neighbor call the cops to complain that there wasn’t enough room for two cars to drive by on the street next to our house. (Honestly, who would call the cops on an Easter Egg hunt?) So the next year Brian, Evan, Casey and Broken Brian (York) made up my parking delegation, safety vests and all. It was also the year that my hands free ear piece made its debut. That’s right, the egg hunt has gone hi-tech. Since Brian and his friends all have Nextel’s it makes my life so much easier. I can check in and make sure there are no problems. They can check in when they need me to find someone to move a car. It also came in handy when they switched modes to supervision of children. I have finally passed on the scavenger hunt to Brian. I tried to hold on to it. I have been in charge of the scavenger hunt for the past 12 years, but, since Mom has stepped back from active participation in the hunt, I have taken over the overall hunt supervision. The scavengers are Brian’s now. It was a sad passing of the torch. (Sniffles, and gives a brave smile through the tears) Every once in a while a team would come up to me and ask me to check their list, and I would sadly send them on to Brian.
I had Carol, Katrina, Sue, Chuck and John on socializing and carrying detail. They greeted the hunters and made polite small talk with the grown ups as we know that this is not my forte. They were also responsible for relieving them of any baked goods or juices that they may have brought for the hunt. I had Erica and Drew inside cutting up cakes and bagels, and Mr. Bill was taking a nap after a very stressful morning of cooking us breakfast.
Marta was on Relay duty. The Relay for Life is an American Cancer Society Fundraiser that I have done for the past four years. I know, the ultimate irony. Anyway, I usually don’t raise more than $20 or $30. This year I was intending on doing better. So Carol and Marta came up with some great ideas. Carol came up with a free will donations Easter basket, and Marta decided on a 50/50 raffle. Both were incredibly successful endeavors. All told we raised $940 for the Relay for Life. Carol thinks that I should split the credit for the money three ways between her, Marta and myself. But I think I deserve full credit for my wonderful “guilt tripping” skills. Besides, I think it was a better plan as far as you guys go, because the original plan involved charging everyone $5 to comment on the blog. (Janette’s idea) A special thanks to Sarah Wilson who after winning the 50/50, gave half of her winnings back. (I guess that would make it more of a 75/25)
As predicted, after the Egg Hunt, everyone scattered. Some had errands to run, hockey games to attend, friends to see, houses to show off, and then all reported back to the house later for pizza and left over Chinese. As for me, there was no manicure in my future. I slept. Not that this is an unusual MO for me after an Egg Hunt, but I slept forever. My body had been telling me all day that I had been overdoing it. Finally, at about 12:30 it sat me down and gave me a stern talking to. (In other words I collapsed into bed and slept for four hours.) I woke up in time to catch the movie “Dogma” on Comedy Central. (I love that movie. Totally irreverent. Right up my alley) Halfway in Brian joined me and we chilled out, ate chocolate and watched the movie. He had gone with his friends to see the movie, “Lucky number Slevin”. As he was telling me about it, I was thinking about how similar in style it seemed to “The Usual Suspects”. Guess what. He has never seen “The Usual Suspects”. I know. Mindblowing. I have since promised that I will remedy this. It’s one of my favorites.
Funniest moment of the Egg Hunt, has to be Mark Yetter. He is seven years old and the most adorable motor mouth ever. On the morning of the Egg Hunt, my little industrious Mark, made a list. What kind of list? A list of potential hiding spots that he needed to check. And check them he did. I had only really paid attention to the front page of the list. As he finished checking an area, he would check it off his list. I was not overly surprised when I heard later that Mark was the one to find the Gold Egg. Later on, I found the list. Look in the bushes, check. Look in the flower pots, check. Look under cinder blocks, check. Look in the back yard, check. And then, on the back, …Find the Golden Egg, checked off. My jaw dropped. It was hysterical. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants, it was so funny.
Sunday morning was also an early morning. We had handbell and choir rehearsal early, before church. Then we had the 8:30 service. I tried to catch a catnap in pastor’s office between services, but between someone (Chuck) fiddling with the sound system, the organ playing, brass instruments tuning, and the cymbals crashing, it was impossible to get more than 15 minutes. After second service, Diane and I went for a drive past her old house. We used the bike path as our pretense. We walked by her house, pretending not to be nosy as we looked in the back yard and tried to ascertain what sort of changes the new owners made. Then we continued to walk. I have to say though, we got some strange looks. We were the only two people walking the bike path in our Easter Sunday best and heels.
Finally, we made it to Carol’s house at around 2:30. It was a small group. Carol, John, Zach and Matt, Katrina and Chuck, Marta and Steve, Aunt Milly and Uncle John, Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve, Erica and Drew, Drew’s parents, and his sister and brother and myself. Not much to tell there. We had a new captive audience to entertain with old family stories. The Rhode Island car accident when we stole the troopers overnight bag (it was an accident, I swear), the time Lucy and I hit another car at Westchester Community College, (also not my fault), then the time I …never mind. I think that this might give you a bad impression. We also made some new memories. Including Appletinis and Matthew’s in the box. These are inside jokes. Only a few of you will get them. The rest of you will just have to wonder.
Monday was my vegging day. It included lying on the couch and watching TV, eating, (because that’s what I do when I’m nervous), and surfing the internet, (and yet I still didn’t post). I just didn’t feel like it. As I mentioned earlier, I was feeling less confident about this chemo. I don’t really know why. I was just antsy about this one. Maybe it was because I had such a busy weekend, I really forgot all about my chemo. Then all of the sudden, it’s time for chemo. It seemed a little abrupt. It was like, oh, you’re just like everyone else, you can do anything they can do, la deed dah., and then NO. You’re actually sick. You have to take your medicine. … I’m over it now. Besides, you don’t want to hear about that. I have much more interesting news. Fun chemo story time! (Claps hands in glee)
So, Janette (after being reminded of how much time she had to get to the house by my earlier blog) rushed to the house by 8:20. I rode to chemo with her because Mom and I have been rubbing each other wrong all week. I eat when I’m nervous; she grinds her teeth and gets snippy. Janette gets to play buffer. (Isn’t she lucky?)
After getting to Westchester, and dealing with a small insurance-referral-authorization-problem…thing, we went to the chemo room. Alas, no special room for us today. There was a transplant patient in the special room. Not to mention, it was a crowded morning so mom and janette, had to find seats elsewhere. But before all of this, they tried to get some blood from my port so that they could test my blood cell count, specifically my white blood cell count.
Now, for those who haven’t checked back that far in the blog or don’t remember…I hate needles. Despise them. I suck it up and give blood once a year, but that’s it. And that’s only because I’ve done that since I was 17. But if I can avoid being poked by a needle I do. Hence, the port. It pinches a little going in, but once in I feel nothing. It’s wonderful.
They flush the port with saline and then withdraw the needle to stimulate blood flow. They poked me with the needle and the saline went in just fine, but nothing came out. So they tried some heparin (blood thinners) to dissolve any possible clots and 15 minutes later made a second attempt. No luck. That’s when they brought out the bicycle pump. Just kidding. It was actually a small needle that Denise, the nurse practitioner, pumped like a bike pump. I kept thinking that I was going to inflate a float away. (I have a picture in mind for that one.)
After 30 minutes of fussing, they had to draw blood from my arm. Let me tell you, I was whiny. (Makes a pouty face) They were able to give me the chemo through the port though. Which is good, because the veins in my hand suck.
The catapult may also get a picture. I have discovered that the chairs outside of the “special room” recline farther back than the chair in the special room. They had me lie back so that they could fiddle with the port, but at one point, when I curled my legs up, the balance of the chair was disrupted and it tipped back nearly sending me flying out of the seat. It was a little startling, but probably the best thing that could have happened. After the stress that I was experiencing, and the insurance referral problem and the port not working, it was exactly the tension breaker I needed. Janette and I just started cracking up and Rita, (a fellow chemo-ite) just laughed at us.
The rest of the chemo went smoothly enough. It was the first chemo that I didn’t nap during. I was busy writing up this blog post so that you people wouldn’t whine. When we were almost done I was so excited to get out of there, but then I had to go and open up my big mouth. (Stupid, I should never talk. It always gets me in trouble) I mentioned in passing that I had recently started experiencing severe back pain in my spine and neck when ever I lay down. I mentioned this to Betsy, the nurse, thinking that she will say,”Oh, that’s normal, it’s from the neulasta. It’s just the bone marrow regrowing.” Instead she gave me a confused look and went to get Denise. Later on I explained it to Denise (nurse practitioner) and she also seemed confused as it was not a symptom that she had ever heard before. So, she then called Dr. Ahmed. 15 minutes later I am downstairs with a prescription in my hand for x-rays of my entire spine and neck. I don’t think that we’re worried, it’s just that things don’t seem to be working out for me lately, so any deviation from the norm is a bad thing in my book. Although as per usual, there is a silver lining to my rather dark and ominous rain cloud. I made friends with the x-ray tech. Well, not really friends. I don’t know her name. But you all know me. I can make a really good first impression when I want to. I jokingly asked if she could see my port in the pictures that she was taking, and low and behold she could. She asked if I wanted to see it and I said “of course”. Now, I already now what it looked like but it was still cool to see it in the context of my ribs. I mentioned, in passing, that I would love to get a copy and that maybe Dr.Ahmed’s office would give me one the next day. She immediately asked if I wanted one right away and proceeded to print me out a film. That’s right. I have x-ray film of the port. Aaaannnnndddd. As soon as I figure out the best method I will post a picture of it on the site, so that you can all see it too.
Alright, this is a really long post and I’m running out of steam. I’m going to go crash now. Hope you all find this as amusing as I do. - Elizabeth