Well this is the start of a big day. In an hour they will put up my last chemo bag that will drip for 24 hours and by tomorrow night I will be officially finished with my first round of chemo. There is one little glitch that could get in the way but I am hoping for the best. I have something called a “picc line” which is attached (inserted) into my arm and that is what they use to deliver chemo to my body. The area around the line is swollen and painful now and I may have to have it removed and redone on the other arm. It shouldn’t disrupt the chemo much, it just means I have to have an extra procedure done and a hole cut in both arms, not just one now. I honestly don’t care that much, so long as they can make the pain and swelling go away and finish the chemo.

In more upbeat news, I am moving to a new floor tomorrow. If you’re looking for me, I will now be on the 8th floor in a brand new PRIVATE room (yeah!). I have had lovely roomates but I wouldn’t mind having some more privacy when people visit. Knowing me, I’ll probably get lonely at night without a roomate though. I can’t help it, I just like the company.

Something I forgot to mention a few days ago, my OB/GYN called me to check on me. She heard about my situation from my primary care doctor (who has also called to check in on me) and she called me on a Saturday afternoon to see how I was doing and see if I had any OB/chemo related questions. I mention this because I was so impressed that she went out of her way to call me on the weekend when I hadn’t even discussed my current situation with her. She has been my doctor since I was in high school and delivered Ty safely and healthfully 5 weeks early. She is one of my favorite people. So aside from cheering on my OB, I want to emphasize the importance of finding doctors that you trust and trust truly care about you. I have been through many different kinds of doctors over the years and I am confident in saying that the few that matter most to my health are the ones that I trust implicitly. If I hadn’t worked hard to find the new family practitioner that I am seeing now, I might have easily ended up in a very dangerous place with no idea that I had leukemia a few months from now. Never put your health on the back burner. Fight for yourself and find yourself the best doctor you can – we all deserve that and it may save your life.

Okay, I’m done with my speech. In closing up for today, I want to thank Robyn for a great visit as always. I also want to thank Gina for coming down. I really enjoyed our conversation and I have tucked the bloodstone into the sleeve along my picc line hoping it will work some magic while I sleep! Brian also came down to hang out for the evening, ate a bunch of my Godiva (thank you!) and got a kick out of watching me do lunges in the hall.

Okey, dokey, off to bed. More tomorrow.