It's test week. To start it out, here's a question. What's 17,816? Any ideas? Give up yet?
The cost of one round of ICE chemo. Yikes! Thanks to health insurance, that's not even close to our portion though. Whew! It's easy to see how medical expenses can bankrupt families.
I've got another PET/CT scan on Tuesday (about $13,000) to see if the cancer is in remission or close to remission so we can proceed with the transplant. Then, Thursday is a whole bunch of preliminary tests for transplant: blood work, chest x-ray, pulmonary function tests, EKG, echocardiogram. Just your typical let's-spend-two-hours-in-the-hospital-being-poked-and-prodded-because-we're-bored plan :-)
Maybe I did a silly thing by wanting to document how generous our neighbors, friends, and family are. We keep writing things in red ink on our family calendar, but it's getting hard to read birthday and other celebrations on each day. I'm so touched. It's a great reminder that I'm not alone even if this particular trial is rather unique.
We had a wonderful dinner on Tuesday night, complete with homemade cookies for dessert, thanks to Kim and Kristin. On Wednesday, a hilarious fluffy purple unicorn from Diane with an equally giggle-producing card and a different card signed by lots of coworkers. On Thursday, lots of yummy ham and bean soup from Jen. Today, fruity slush from Jennifer. Wow!
The more we get away from chemo, the better I feel. Almost back to normal now. Just slightly more tired than usual, but it keeps getting better all the time. Now it's time for the weird sensation of feeling each heart beat in the center of my hip bones and spine. It's almost like a tiny zap of electricity. If I think about it, there's some pain associated with each beat; but I'm almost used to it by now so I usually don't think about it. Just another sign of modern advances, where the Neulasta injection is stimulating my bone marrow to produce more blood cells. I'm not sure if it applies to red blood cells and platelets as well as white blood cells. I'll have to check.
There's one part of a suture from my port that is now sticking almost straight out and likes to poke me--especially when I'm trying to sleep. Hopefully, I can have a radiologist or radiology nurse look at it Tuesday morning. I don't just want to tug on it. If it moves my port or somehow disrupts it, I'd hate to need to get it reinserted.
Very little to complain about and lots to be grateful for. Thanks for the heartfelt reminders to look for blessings while enduring trials, Nanette and Jared. And thank you for the very real, yet upbeat examples!
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