♫ Gloom,
despair and agony on me,
Deep
dark depression, excessive misery.
If it
weren’t for my bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
Gloom,
despair and agony on me. ♫*
Sunday,
September 27th
The Clouds Begin to Form
So back on the first of September, a Tuesday, when I
got my usual four week dose of Zometa and Decadron, Nurse Holly called in to my
pharmacy for some Decadron tablets, saying to me: “No Decadron the night
before, no chemo the next day.” (The dosage was five 4mg tabs, please remember
that.)
Guess what? That night the shoulder pain comes back1.
Now, the shoulder and lower back pain that caused the oncologist to question
the efficacy of the Tarceva and order a CAT scan, had dissipated after a week,
but for some unknown reason the shoulder and upper back pain returned the night
after the Z&D. This is very confusing to my little brain because the
Decadron is supposed to deal with that pain, or so I was told by the APRN. As
usual, I start with Advil – nothing doing. So I move up to Vicodin. That’s good
for three hours, but if I want to sleep it’s time for Percocet. Now, Percocet
and Vicodin are good stuff except they cause constipation, so I also have to
take Senakot, which tastes awful and really doesn’t help. What a pain. Pun
intended. And so it goes – Vicodin every four hours, Percocet at bedtime.
Okay, Thursday, the 3rd, I’m at St. Mary’s,
bright and early for the insertion of the Porta-Cath. I knew that I was going
get some stuff, so I held off on the Vicodin. It was supposed to be an easy in
and out. I was with Toby where she had her’s installed, and it was quick and
easy. We’ll even have the same surgeon. But, that little black cloud was floating
over my head. I’m lying on the bed in the prep room, looking cute in my
hospital pajama bottoms and scuffy anklet socks, when the nurse comes in to
start me on an IV. So, she decides to use the back of my left hand for the port,
and three sticks later she gives up and goes to call someone who’s better at
this. (And this is just the beginning, folks.) The next nurse comes in and
seeing the bandage on my left hand very cleverly decides to try the right. Lo
and behold, she did know what she was doing and got it first try. Where the
hell was she in the first place?
(But, wait there’s more.) In comes the technician to take my
vitals for the hospital charts. She looks young, too young. And, she’s with an
orderly. She tries to take my temp with one of those ear thingies, only I have
my hearing aids in, and she’s confused and doesn’t know what to do. She must
have thought it was in there permanently or something. I, of course, forgot I
had it in. So, Toby, the only one with brains in the room, tells me to take my
hearing aids out and give them to her before I lose them or swallow them or
something. Anyway, cutie pie then takes my temp, and proceeds to hook me up to
the BP machine. She was going to try to put it on my right arm when my wife
told her she can’t and has to use my left arm what with the IV and all – duh! Well,
the cuff doesn’t reach to my left arm and ten minutes later she and the useless
orderly have the machine moved over to the left side, and that’s when we find out that it’s the first time she’s ever done this. [Stee-rike twooooo!]
So finally, I get taken to the pseudo-OR where they are
going to do the insertion. The doctor says hello and stats prepping the right
side of my chest. I told him that I purposefully shaved the left side of my
chest (hairy beast that I am) because that’s where my wife’s port went. And he
asked if her breast cancer was on the right side; I said yes, and he said that’s
why. So they shave where he’s going to make the incisions and does not shave
where they’re GOING TO PLACE THE ADHESIVE STUFF. [Stee-rike…]
A young fellow says to me that he is going inject a twilight
drug into my IV, I should say something if I should start feeling pain. And,
before I could say, okey-doke I was out. The next I know is that I start
feeling some pain on my chest and remembering his parting words I hear my self
saying, ow, ow, ow.
And, I hear a voice in the distance say; I’m just removing
the tape. AND, MY CHEST HAIR!
[…THA-REEE!]
I’m taken to the room this all started in, and there is my
waiting wife and a lunch tray with apple juice, milk, a turkey sandwich, coffee
and that ubiquitous hospital staple GREEN JELLO. YUM!
Anyway, I now have a semi-permanent IV docking port in my
chest – no more fishing for veins.
Thunder Rumbles
That Saturday, Toby went to the pharmacy to pick up my
Decadron prescription, because I was too far under the influence of painkillers.
She was gone a while longer than I thought it should take. In the meanwhile I
received what I thought was a very strange phone call.
The phone rang and the caller ID read “St. Mary’s Hospital”.
I answered and the voice said with a rising inflection indicating a question:
“Dr. Rigby?”
I replied: “I’m sorry; you must have the wrong number.”
To which he replied: “Dr. Rigby? I was told to call this
number.”
“Well I’m afraid there’s no Dr. Rigby here. You must have
the wrong phone number. Sorry.”
A few minutes later the phone rings again with the same
voice and question and I’m still not catching on. “No, I’m afraid there’s no
Dr. Rigby here and I can’t imagine why St. Mary’s would be calling this house
at all. I’m sorry I can’t help you.” All the while the voice is still not
intelligently making his case and is stumbling on about being told to call this
number but not the reason and sounding just a little impatient.
Well, my friends, perhaps you are catching on; it took me
awhile yet. But as I waited for Toby’s return I didn’t really expect her to
have the meds she went for. It slowly occurred to me that Dr. Rigby, although
his name was totally unfamiliar to me, might have been the on-call weekend
doctor for the Cancer center and was working out of the hospital, but why the
confusion on his part?
Presently Toby arrived and without the unexpected medicine. So
I call the answering service and I get this women’s gravelly voice. (She
sounded like she would rather be watching a NASCAR race drinking JD and coke than
answering the phone.) And she sounded irritated when I told her who I was. I
said I knew what the problem was and could I speak to the doctor. Now, the
doctor calls back and he’s irritated. (Of course!) I explained to him that I
didn’t know my wife had called, that I had no idea why anyone from St. Mary’s
would call and that I was loaded with Vicodin and my head was in a very
uncomfortable position right about then. Well, he seemed to calm down and asked
what dosage Holly called in. Now, I remember she said five tablets and 20
milligrams, so I said I thought it was 100 mgs.
He said that’s not right because it only comes in 1, 2, 3
and 4 mg doses. So five times four would be twenty. And so he orders five 4 mgs
tablets for the night before and five tablets the morning of. Sunday, the 6th,
I drove to the pharmacy to pick up the pills. Anyway, I think I drove. I got
the pills – that much I know.
[Are you detecting a theme here, you know, with me and
painkillers and such? Oh, Baby, believe it! Gimme the drugs! Yeah, yeah, I know:
take it like a woman.2
Hah! Does the word epidural ring a bell? As in: “Gimme the f****n’
epidural!”]
Tuesday, the 8th, Toby and I arrive bright
and early for my 9:00 AM chemotherapy appointment.
Early, because we were told it was going to be a five hour ordeal as the drugs
needed to be introduced very slowly the first time around. This is to see if
there’s going to be any adverse reactions, you know, like fainting, projectile
vomiting, uncontrollable diarrhea, nose bleeds, or the combination of any or
all four. And so they give me this bell to ring at the first sign of anything
distressful. And I’m told to take this bell very seriously because at the first
ding every nurse in the place will
descend on me with a crash wagon, oxygen bottle and mop and bucket. I take them
seriously, very seriously.
Okay, five hours is a schlep, so Toby and I come prepared
with snacks, drinks, reading material, music (via CD’s)3 and plenty
of quarters for the wonderful coffee maker downstairs that offers a myriad of
flavors and roasts. (Toby’s favorite is
the French Vanilla, while I prefer the darker roasts.)
After the necessary drawing of blood for their various and
sundry tests and a consultation with the APRN, a port is attached to my
Porta-Cath and it’s OUT TO THE BOOM-BOOM ROOM AT THE CHEMO LOUNGE.4
And lounge it is, as there are a dozen or more reclining
lounge chairs with end tables and arm chairs for your partner. (Unless you’re a
member of some ethnic group that requires at least six family members and
friends, all of which talk at the same time and take up every available spare
chair including the stool labeled Staff Use Only. But, the staff is so nice and
friendly and smiley and helpful; it doesn’t bother them. I mean, consider the
situation.) The chairs are all lined along a window wall so there’s plenty of
light. They’ve got a TV set on one end, portable DVD players with some good
DVD’s, magazines, blankets and pillows, hard candies and cracker snacks. I love
this place!
I choose what turns out to be the most coveted chair in the
lounge. It seems that two patients whose appointments sometimes overlap
actually argue over who’s to sit in that chair. (I later discover it’s a very
depressing location and don’t sit there ever again.)
The first question Nurse Holly asks is did I take my 5
Decadron tabs last night, and I said, yes, I did and 5 that morning. To
which she says, no, I wasn’t supposed to, just the five at night. So I
explained the whole Dr. Rigby thing to her, and she laughed and shook her head.
I gathered she wasn’t too fond of him either. (Later on we shall see that
sometimes too much Decadron might be a lucky thing.) And having answered the
question correctly, almost, she proceeds to hook me up. She starts with the
Avastin, because it takes the longest, and is the one that the body usually has
trouble tolerating, more so than the other two bags of poison I’m getting.
Avastin is supposed to attack the blood vessels feeding the cancer, but it
seems to be a bit indiscriminate when it comes to the good blood vessels, so
caution is in order. So what’s the worse thing that can happen to me? A
nosebleed? When the pamphlet says internal bleeding and possibly death, my good
friend the bio-statistician says that even if they’ve tested thousands of
people, they have to report even one death. So, I should forget about it. Yeah,
with my luck!
Well, anyway, the drip is so slow that poor, apologetic
Holly has problems getting the rate right and three hours turns into 3 ½,
almost four hours. The Taxol needs an hour and a half, and the Carboplatin
needs an hour, plus there’s Decadron and Benadryl for the nausea, so five hours
slowly becomes seven. But, hey, I got my tunes; I got my snacks; I got my quarters,
so what’s another minute or two, give or take a couple of hours? And besides, I’ve
got my dear sweet wife with me. ♫Who could ask for
anything more? ♫
(We’re becoming sort of a minor celebrity couple at the
center. I was with Toby for all of her meetings and treatments, and she has
always accompanied me with mine – we’re called ‘the two old love birds’. Hah!
If they only knew. We’d be called “The Bickersons”.)
I shall report on my reaction to the chemo next chronicle,
so ta-ta for now.
Rudy the Reactor
*© Roy Clark and Buck Owens
With a tip of the straw hat
to Hee-Haw’s Archie Campbell and Gordie Tapp. Sal-lute
1. The type and severity of
the shoulder and bone pain will be covered in detail in a chapter called,
not-so oddly enough, the Prequel.
2. See the first Cancer
Chronicle called, oddly enough, The Cancer Chronicles.
3. My taste in music is
rather eclectic, so I brought some Mozart, some Bop – Dizzy, Bird, Coltrane – and
some early Nat King Cole Trio.
4. In my nightclubbing days
in the fifties, I actually went to a place called the Boom-Boom Room at some
Lounge. I can’t remember if it was in New York City Miami Beach
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