hit the road jack...

okay, so i slept about 10 hours last night, i've had my anti-nausea pills, i'm trying to drink apple juice, and i think i'm ready to relate everything that happened yesterday.

so, let's see. my friends anne and moss had a baby 4 days ago. so i scheduled my pre-chemo blood test around them. i went to get the test and was told i could call in an hour for the results - the results that would tell me if my white counts were high enough to get chemo.

so i got pricked. then went over to anne and moss' to see baby tobias...so damn cute and healthy with 10 fingers and 10 toes. and this is where the emotional damn started to break loose. at their house i cried.

at my next stop at the nutritionist, i cried. although, i got some really good information about how i should take care of myself from now on. exercise is HUGE. no drinking is huge. and every day i will take a multi-vitamin, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, fish oil, and CoQ10. colleen, the nutritionist, said that women taking tamoxifen (the drug i have to take for 5 years to prevent recurrence) are at high risk for osteoporosis - hence the calcium. she said vitamin D is good for everyone but especially good for cancer survivors - something about receptors on the cells, i can't really remember. and one of my chemo drugs, adriamycin, is very hard on the heart...so CoQ10 works to protect it. it felt really good to talk to her and, like i said, start to get back a feeling that i could take care of my body. repair, heal, take control.

after the nutritionist i finally got through to the kaiser nurses for my test results. last week my neutrophil count (part of the white blood cells) had been .9 when they are supposed to be a minimum of 1.5. yesterday the test showed they were all the way up 2.6!! (i actually didn't cry getting the results.)

my next stop was kaiser. and everyone i talked to there made me cry. the first nurse, diane, who administered the adriamycin. then i talked to the social worker, dennis, and he made me cry - telling me he was proud of me, that i was DONE, from that day on i was cancer-free. then i was still crying when the pharmacist came to talk to me about new drugs i have to take - he didn't really deal with the tears that well. and even a second nurse made me cry. then later, when i was officially done with chemo, about 7 nurses came around the chemo-chair, blowing bubbles and singing "hit the road jack and don't you come back no more!" more tears. which made my mom cry. and we made two nurses cry. so they all hugged me.

and that was it. i was done. all i had to do was pick up my prescriptions. and oh...the prescriptions...

because my white blood counts were so low last time and this time... dr. kogel prescribed me neupogen that will work on my bone marrow to help build up my white blood cells. that way i won't be as susceptible to infection. sounds great, right? right. except that neupogen comes as self-injectable SHOTS! i have to inject myself with a one-inch needle into my stomach! once a day for five days. scary, scary, scary. so. those shots are scheduled to start tomorrow. we'll just have to see how brave i can be. i recognize my bravery up until now...but injecting MYSELF with a needle in the stomach?! i don't know about that.

anyway. this morning i think i feel okay. i'm trying to drink a lot of liquid...i'm instructed to drink 8-10 glasses of water in the first two days. so much when the thought of drinking makes me shiver. i'll try to eat. and i'll rest. we'll see how it all goes.