SC Visit
That weekend after the second Cytoxan treatment, Kyle and I went down to SC for nine days to visit family and friends, and pick up the rest of my crap (how do I have so much stuff in another state??). We drove down to Charleston Saturday for my early birthday party, which was a lot of fun and thanks to everyone who made it. It was so nice to see all my friends again.
I checked out Monday morning, and ran some errands in Charleston. I went to the local bank to get a new card with my current name on it, and while I was making transfers, the teller checked my ID, and said either I got my hair cut really short, or I've managed to hide it all under my hat. Lucky for her, she seemed nice, so instead of slapping her, I laughed and told her "I wish". And then she went on to tell me that she "sees a lot of stuff at the bank, and if anything happened" to me, my husband might not have immediate access to my money, or the state could even end up getting it, since he's not listed on my account. Wow. While that's good information to know and I do appreciate her letting me know, I don't know how I feel about a bank teller assuming I'm gonna drop dead tomorrow, leaving my husband without any money. Regardless, we promptly added Kyle's name to my account.
I went back to Myrtle Beach for the week and left Kyle with his friend in Charleston. You know, the one who's the reason we postponed having a real wedding because he's deploying for a year in December. It was a much-needed break for the two of us though, since we're together basically all the time.
I also got to hang out with my beautiful (original) puppy, even though my friend prefers the term "sewer rat" to describe his unique appearance. I took him to get his shots and got him groomed/trimmed, which I knew Ron would not like. It's just hair, it grows back (unless you're on chemo)! Check out his new look:
I also visited my temporarily-disabled friend who was home for a while due to an embarrassing story that I'll wait til the holidays to share. And I finally met my other friend's cousin's five-month-old twin babies who I've been stalking on Facebook. She uploads tons of pictures, but even the cutest ones don't come close to how cute they are in person! Unfortunately, she knew beforehand my plot to steal one of them (she has TWO), so she kept a careful eye on me. But I got to hold them and feed the boy. (Don't mind that I look like death in the picture below, the babies didn't seem to care).
Dogs
We went back home the next Saturday. Kyle's friend had been dog-sitting our dogs, and I was worried about the state of our house. We came home to this:
But besides that, the house was surprisingly clean! It had even been vacuumed and all the poop was picked up!
Cytoxan #3
I didn't have much time to enjoy the clean house because I was leaving for Portland that Tuesday. I went Monday, Nov. 7th to get the third round of Cytoxan. My counts were decent (I don't remember the specifics), so they hooked me up. I managed to stay awake during the second Cytoxan, but that third one knocked me out for some reason. On the way home, I was fighting to stay awake and alert and ended up getting stuck in some strange funeral procession on the main two-lane road going back to my house. Except none of the following cars had any identifying markings. So when five cars ran a red light to get into my lane and then proceeded to drive about 30 mph in a 50, I was not pleased. Especially since I was so drugged up from the chemo and just wanted to sleep.
Portland/GHC Trip
I got my Neulasta shot Tuesday, ran a bunch of errands, and Kyle drove me to the airport. I was very surprised with the Newark airport, which seems massive, and yet I was only in the security line for less than 10 minutes. I didn't even see any naked-imaging radiation scanners or any violating patdowns by the TSA agents. And when I asked the agent if I needed to take off my hat, she just gave me a look of pity, and let me go through the xray. Sweet! And then I sat for 6 hours on a direct flight to Portland, watching more episodes of Friends than I care to admit.
Portland was pretty cool. They have a great public transportation system! Or at least I thought so considering the places I've lived. The MAX rail took me right to my hotel from the airport, and the convention center for the conference was across the street. I roomed with another CS major from my school who I've known since freshman year and who encouraged me to apply for the scholarship in the first place (thanks Brittany!).
I didn't go to as many of the sessions as I should have, and I forgot to bring copies of my resume for the career fair/booths they had set up, but I definitely enjoyed the food and the free swag and the experience of Portland itself. Now's just not a good time for me to be focusing on a future career or grad school. When I said I wasn't sure about grad school yet in a discussion group, some woman basically yelled at me saying I needed to make up my mind right away and go take the GRE. I just told her now's a bad time for me, and she turned to harass the other girls instead. I'm pretty sure grad school, or even a job, can wait. We're getting by just fine on Kyle's income and my refunded scholarship money for now.
The conference was kind of depressing in some senses, because I can't just pick up and move anywhere to start a career since I'm married now, and it made me realize how much I've had to put my life "on hold" because of cancer at my age. I was too tired and nauseous to hit up most of the sessions, but we made sure we visited downtown Portland Friday. The MAX rail is free all over the downtown area, so we hopped on. First stop was Chinatown, found some homeless camps set up in the area (wished we'd brought some of the free food from the conference!), found a mall a few blocks over (in the middle of downtown??), realized there was no sales tax on anything, got some fancy hot chocolate, had to buy some gloves (colder than I expected), literally got lost inside Powell's City of Books (it covers a full city block!), and then got soaked in the rain waiting for the MAX rail going back because it's Portland and that's what it does. Overall, we had a fun day, and ended it with the big, final celebration of the conference before hopping on an overnight flight back home.
The trip home was much less forgiving. At the PDX airport, I asked about my hat, and the agent asked if I was able to take it off? No, I've glued it to my head! I took it off, and then tried to joke with the other agent that I obviously wasn't hiding anything under there. They also had the radiation machines, so I'm convinced that a naked image of my bald self is now floating around the internet. Then when I was coming out of the bathroom stall before waiting at the gate for my flight, I ran into one of my professors who had also attended the conference and who also happened to be leaving Friday night. What were the chances of that...
Continental Airlines Sucks
I was exhausted by the time I landed at Newark, and had a codeshare part of my Continental trip through Amtrak because it was cheaper than stopping in Newark (how??) and would take me closer to home. I went to check in at the Amtrak kiosk. No information found? Amtrak agents weren't going to arrive until 9, and it was 6 in the morning and I was trying to catch an 8:27 train. So I called Amtrak, the guy said no big deal, call Continental, they can instantly send over the right info. So I called Continental, and oh geez. I ended up talking to THREE different agents and still had no luck. The first one insisted there was no 8:27 train to Philadelphia. I checked the times on the board, it said 8:28. I kept having to repeat to her that I was at the Newark Airport station, not Newark's Amtrak station. She said there was no 8:27 OR 8:28. Yet another guy had just come in, called Amtrak, had his reservation of 8:27 switched to an earlier train, which I wanted to do too. I told her to send me over to someone else, but still no luck. I didn't understand how Continental could be that stupid at booking flights and train tickets. Then FOUR other guys showed up, and they ALL had the same problem. We were both on the phone with Continental, yet they couldn't find any of the appropriate information. None of us were happy.
The agent finally told me I'd just have to buy a ticket myself out of pocket and call Continental later to get reimbursed for it. I was pissed. I'd ALREADY paid for my ticket, it was part of my flight! They even told me I couldn't get my money back for the whole trip because it was connected with this (nonexistent?) train trip. I stayed on the phone arguing with these idiots for a little while more, and the other guys let me know that the Amtrak tickets they were forced to buy cost $70 each. Wow. Instead I hopped on a NJTransit train to Trenton because it was only $17, and I only needed to go to Trenton anyway. The whole situation did not make me happy, especially being sleep-derived at 7 in the morning yelling at dumb people who can't even run a computer system.
SC DMV Really Sucks
I did make it home though. Except I had to pick up the Nissan from Kyle's work first. Tuesday morning when I was in Portland, I got a phone call from a NJ number around 3 AM. I answered it and it's some Sergeant. So of course my first thought is something terrible happened to Kyle, but then I was trying to figure out why Kyle was out at this hour, and then I finally remembered the three hour time difference and that Kyle was on his way to work. Well he got pulled over for "speeding", but when the cop ran his license, its status came back as suspended. Um, what? The cop ignored me and kept talking, saying I needed to come pick up my car and that Kyle needs to go down to this building and file these papers and blah blah blah. I was like "um, I'm in PORTLAND right now," which I had to repeat a few times! Kyle had even told him before he called me that I was in Oregon. But the cop just kept telling me I needed to come get my car. I tried to explain to him that his license was suspended TWO YEARS AGO, but that he paid the fine and retook all the tests, but this guy was obviously an asshole and wasn't going to cut him any slack. Kyle showed me where he was "caught" going 38 in a 25, and the distance makes it impossible. I know the Nissan's got a V6 engine and it's so easy to accidentally start speeding in it, but there's no way it could get up that fast in such a small space, and the cop wasn't even close enough to see the area properly. He also didn't seem to realize that Kyle's building is right around the corner, so to me it sounds like he'd gotten some other car and went after Kyle instead. Go figure.
Kyle called the SC DMV later and it turns out it's another case of dumb people not knowing how to run a computer system. Their records show that he came into the DMV three or four times after his suspension, but that's it. He paid the reinstatement fee in cash, so no receipts, and he retook both the written test and the road test, but they have no proof. Even if he had receipts, who would have saved them for TWO years?? So he's screwed as usual. This will probably take months to get fixed, and he has to do some paperwork to get a NJ license and surrender his SC license, and then he has to do more paperwork stuff because it happened on the base. For now, I get to play chauffeur and drive Kyle back and forth to work every day, 7 AM and 7 PM. We're going to the DMV tomorrow to hopefully get the process started.
Funny things about this whole situation: We also got pulled over on the way to SC in some dinky little town where the speed limit had suddenly dropped to 25 and we didn't notice, but the cop was super nice and didn't bother with a ticket AND I told Kyle to go get his license renewed while we were in SC since it expires next month, but he forgot. If either of those situations had been different, we could've gotten this problem fixed way more easily. But no, the universe likes to screw us over. How to make this all a little better? Try to convince my mom to go have a "poop accident" in the DMV lobby.
Classes Update
On to more a more positive note: I have successfully wrangled some more professors into offering me remote versions of their courses for next semester. I don't know why it took me this long to figure out, but instead of paying 400$ to take the final history class I need from the local college, I can just take 9 credit hours at CofC and get back another whopping scholarship reimbursement. I'm eligible for my full-time disability status for a few more semesters, so I might as well take advantage of the situation. I'm taking history and two 100-level Computer Science electives, which should make for a much easier courseload than the torture I put myself through this semester. Plus, with the amount of money I'll be getting back into my pocket, anyone would be able to see the justification.
Only a week left of this semester!
Cytoxan #4
The Cytoxan alone has not been nearly as bad as the Adriamycin, which is one of the reasons I'm feeling up to taking another semester of classes. I got the final round of it yesterday morning (Monday), and get hopefully my last Neulasta shot tomorrow. I also have an appointment with the genetics counselor, who called me while I out shopping at the mall in SC to let me know my genetic test results. Thankfully they were good! I tested negative for the rest of the p53 stuff, so still no genetic mutations have been found. I'm meeting with her today to just wrap things up. She has no suggestions for any further testing, but wants to make sure my family members will be getting the proper screenings just in case.
I also have to get another heart MUGA test (I think) before I start the final part of chemo: 12 weeks of Taxol and the Herceptin (not chemo). Apparently the Herceptin can weaken the heart muscle (like the Adriamycin), so my heart has to be checked again beforehand. My blood counts were decent again today, my hemoglobin was up to 10ish and my platelets were 101. I'll start getting hit with the nausea and muscle aches Wednesday and Thursday, just in time for Thanksgiving!
Tricare Sucks (but only sometimes)
I got a new anti-nausea medicine before we left for SC. Hopefully it should help for the Thanksgiving feast. It took days for the prescription itself to go through because of, again, dumb people not knowing how to run a computer system. They said my name wasn't in their system, when CVS is nationwide and I used to go all the time in Charleston, where I updated my name and insurance info right after I got married. When we went to pick the prescription up, they tried to say I had two insurances, and that it couldn't be processed. My stepdad called the day after I got married to let his insurance company know to drop me, and I have never even mentioned my old insurance to Tricare. And I've picked up prescriptions up here before without a problem, so I didn't understand why it suddenly had problems.
So I called Tricare, but they had no record of a second insurance company, and told me to call a different number for the pharmacy program. I called the pharmacy program, and they just had to run something through saying I only have Tricare. These calls somehow took about an hour altogether and I just wanted to throw up all over CVS's floor the whole time. Apparently CVS had been double billing BOTH insurance companies (for the past seven months??). I've never had any problems anywhere else thankfully, and shouldn't have any future problems now. I'm so thankful Kyle's health insurance covers everything, but wow it can be a pain in the butt to navigate sometimes.
Hospital's Parking Lot Sucks (most of the time)
Before my last trip to the hospital, they added gates to their parking lot. It's always overcrowded and if you don't come before 9 AM, you probably won't get a spot. So to fix this, you need a token from the front desk to get through the exit gate. The last time I was there, I asked if this was supposed to help with the parking situation, and they said the staff sometimes park there when they're not supposed to, so this should stop them. That's pretty inconsiderate of the staff to take the closer parking spots meant for sick patients.
I really don't enjoy the fact that this hospital makes me interact with the front desk people not just once, but twice now, once when I enter, and once when I leave. You have to tell them why you're there and pick up a slip of paper with "Visitor's Pass" on it. I usually want to hit the receptionist when I tell her "Oncology" and she asks if I know where to go. I'm BALD. Who do you think made me bald?? The very fact that I'm bald should be a dead giveaway that I'm going to the cancer ward. Then again, since it's colder now, I don't look nearly as silly wearing a fleece hat as I did in the summer. But still, it's just annoying having to deal with these people sometimes and I'm going to be doing it a lot more on the Taxol.
So anyway, now when you leave, you have to return your Visitor's Pass, which at this point has been shoved in a bag and crumpled up, and ask for a token. So today, I got my token and went to leave. Another building shares the parking lot, and I noticed a white car parked out front in their dropoff section with an old lady in it. The exit gate is right next to it, and is stupidly wide enough for two cars. I put my token in the machine and the gate goes up, and I drive forward, and out of nowhere the white car WHIZZES past me through the open gate, not even stopping for the stop sign outside of it! I'm in disbelief and still moving forward, until I realize OH CRAP the gate's coming down because it sensed a car went through. Luckily I backed up in time, but I was pissed. I had to park in a fire lane, walk back across the street to the hospital, and get another stupid token. I explained it to the receptionists at the desk, who I was sure would recognize I was just in there, and they passed over another token right away, but you could tell they were in disbelief too. Next time I go in, I think I'm going to suggest they add a barrier to the exit gate to prevent two cars from fitting, because that was crazy.
I Have Hair Again! (sort of...)
I finally got my reimbursement check for my wig though. They didn't include the tax, but I'm too tired at this point to fight for $18. I don't even wear the stupid thing. But, I might not even need hats pretty soon! My hair started growing back in about two weeks ago, with this crazy platinum blond and brown color combination and peach fuzz texture. It's getting darker and closer to normal now. Dr. C said that sometimes happens, but that the Taxol may or may not wipe it out again. So we'll just have to wait and see. But it's kind of exciting not being that creepy "chemo bald" anymore. It's a shame about the armpits though. Had to break down and shave them last night. I still can't feel the right one, which sucks. But I will gladly shave my armpits everyday if it means having some decent hair on my head!
When we visited in SC, my eyebrows were still mostly gone (accidentally rubbed off the penciled-in ones the night of my party, oops). I pointed out the patches to my mom, who got sad and said I had had beautiful eyebrows ("you mean 'eyeBROW'"), and related them to "Brooke Shields eyebrows". Ouch... I definitely don't take that as a compliment! But I will also gladly pluck those pesky hairs in the middle if it means having any eyebrows (and eyelashes) at all!
But No Sleep!
This post was made possible by the fact that I have been completely wired for the past five days. I literally haven't gotten a proper's night sleep in about a week, and before this I was sleeping at least 10-12 hours every night. I think I was up for over 36 hours straight the other day with only a 2 hour nap. Most nights I've only gotten 3 or 4 straight hours of sleep since I have to get up to take the husband to work. I've gotten so much homework done though, which is definitely needed since it's almost the end of the semester. But I haven't really felt "tired". I should've mentioned this to my doctor, but I figure this week's chemo will have me back on my old schedule in no time. But man have I been productive! The "chemo brain" seems to be easing up and I'm so thankful to be able to think clearly again!
Guess what??
This incredibly long post is finally over and you can go back to much more important things in your life now! Thanks for hanging in there!
