Days Eighty Five and Six - a new chemo - taxol - how will I fare?

Genesis 45:11  "There I will also provide for you, for there are still five years of famine to come, and you and your household and all that you have would be impoverished."'

So I'm done with the red stuff, and everyone says that the taxol is easier.  We shall see.  On Wednesday evening I took 5 steroid pills, and at eight in the morning on Thursday I took 5 more steroid pills.  I had forgotten to ask the doctor why I had to do this.  I don't like taking pills without knowing why, but I knew I had to take them anyway.  

My appointment this time was early - 9:00 or something.  They did all the usual things, take my blood, check my "vitals", then I talked with the doctor.  He hasn't seemed very cheery of late, which is disappointing.  He was such a funny doctor before.  I hope his lack of cheer has nothing to do with me.  He said that the tumor was smaller, and he suggested that the little tumors were turning into dead cells just hanging around.  Well that's gross.  He seemed in a bit of a hurry, so I didn't ask all the questions I wanted to ask - like what is the taxol going to do?  He did tell me the side affects, but I wanted to know the positive affects.  

I forgot to mention that Riley was with me because we didn't know what this new stuff would do to me.  But when we went upstairs to the "infusion suite" they explained that this was going to drip into me over about a 3 1/2 hour period, so after a little while Riley left.  But he did stay around long enough to see a student from the chiropractic college give me a food rub.  He explained why he was very gentle on some areas.  Riley seemed to pay close attention, since he's my primary foot rubber.

I was cold, so they gave me a heated blanket.  After I while I was very hungry - as I hadn't realized I would be there so long and I hadn't packed any food, not that there was anything I could pack.  I was so desperate that I ate peanut butter crackers.  They weren't too bad, but they certainly don't have what I'd call nutritious food in that place. I whiled away the time with various things, as I had my bag of things to do with me.   But eventually I began to realize that I was getting very very sleepy, and I didn't feel safe about driving. So I called Riley, and things worked out very well, and he arrived just as I was finished.

I'm pretty sure we went home and I took a bit of a nap. Then I think we went somewhere for lunch. But I don't remember the experience. I wish I could say that we went to MacMinnamin's where I shared a dungeon burger and fries with Riley, or that we went to the Pearl Bakery where I had a ham and fontina sandwich and loved it. But that's not the case. We went somewhere where I very slowly ate something I didn't like all that well, but with determination I got some of it down.   This is an effective way to lose weight, but not one I'd recommend.

I woke up and took Riley to work, and because of all the steroids I did have energy, so I'll bet I did something with Annie.  But I can't remember.  Later on in the evening Annie called to tell me that there is a sock convention in town, and that tomorrow they are holding a Guiness world record event to set the record for the most amount of women knitting for fifteen minutes without out any stops.  Well I told Annie that that was a be there event.  She then told me that we needed to pick up tickets for the event between 7 and 9 in the morning.  So I told her I'd pick her up at 8 the next morning, which I did.

Psalm 3:5  "I lay down and slept;

 I awoke, for the LORD sustains me."

The next morning I was full of energy - the steroids.  Kind of scary really.  I ate my oatmeal and we were off.  I'm not allowed to have my vitamins when taking chemo.  We got to the convention center and quickly obtained our tickets.  Then I think we drove Riley to work, and then we went to Starbucks because Annie hadn't eaten.  We had a pleasant time, but then we decided that we would go to the credit union cash machine to get cash, because $2 cash was required to get into the "market place" at the knitting convention.  There were three cash machines in a row, so we each had our own.  When Annie was done getting her cash she came to mine to see how I was doing.  I need some help (Riley's always the one who gets the cash).  Annie had to show me how to get my card back out.  At that point she suddenly panicked and started going frantically through her little purse looking for her card.  It wasn't there.  I spotted a man coming away from the machine she had been at and I ran after him to see if he had found a card in the machine.  He hadn't.  But then as we stood there on the sidewalk looking pretty flustered a man came and asked if we had lost a card.  He had turned it into the bank right next to the machines.  Well that was good to hear, but .....  because it wasn't our bank they had to shred the card after finding out who it belonged to.  All we could do was stand there and watch them put her card into the shredding machine.  So at that there was nothing to do but to go to our bank.  Turns out it was a good thing because there was a little problem with Annie's card, but she wasn't going to get a new one for two weeks.

After that misadventure we headed to the convention center and went to the market place.  I never saw so much sock wool at one time, but the vast majority of it was way to high priced for my Scottish blood.  But I did buy some wool from a place called WEBS that had great prices.  I got 10 balls of Misti Alpaca sport weight in dark green to make myself a cardigan.  It's awesome wool, 146 yards per 50 grams, and 6 stitches to the inch, and ..... it's sealed in a bag, thus providing moth protection.  Then we hurried on upstairs for the Guiness record event.

They were still trying to give away tickets, but there were a lot of people in the ball room.  We found a seat up towards the front and settled in.  It really was a fun event, and it was moderated by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the person who organized the Knitting Olympics in 2006.  That was a very significant event for me, as my arm had just been operated on to re-attach two tendons in my right arm.  

Casting on at the start of the Olympics - right as they lit the torch.

I had to sleep on the couch in the living room so as to prevent rolling over on my shoulder.  My entire life was spent in the living room for about 12 weeks.  Competing in the knitting Olympics was great therapy for me, and I managed to knit a sweater I had always wanted to make.  It required that I knit a ball of wool a day.  I would get up in the morning, struggle with eating breakfast with my left hand, and then start knitting.  I managed to finish the sweater just in the nick of time.

Getting into the sweater wasn't easy, and my sling was only very temporarily off. The sweater needed to be finished before the torch was extinguished

.

The sweater fits me better, now that I've lost 30 pounds. But the hair doesn't look quite as good. So anyway, I have always had a fondness for Stephanie, because that really kept me going through a hard time.

So Stephanie and several other ladies were very funny that day. So here's a video I took of Stephanie - who's from Toronto.

Then, not long after this record was successfully broken, we headed out to go to the cancer clinic for my day-2 appointment. That took no time at all. Then Annie was hungry, so we went to McDonald's. I got four McNuggets and some fries and they tasted terrible, and I later put them in the garbage. But Annie got a nice lunch. Then we headed back to the convention center, because Annie wanted to go back to the "market place", because we really hadn't been there very long. While there Tiah called and said she wanted to join us. Now I have to say that by this time I was getting pretty tired, but I hung in there. We all went to check out the "sock knitting museum", and I must say it was pretty interesting. There were sock there that I recognized - either I had them in a book or I had seen them on the internet, especially socks by Nancy Buch (my favorite sock knitter) or by Cookie-A (my second favorite sock knitter).

Well we finally left, and I was really quite tired.  I went home and took a nap, and I can't remember what happened for the rest of the day, but I did come down with a fairly bad sore throat.  But then, after chemo I always get a sore throat.  I'm pretty sure I did something that evening.  That's because I tend to keep going, whether I should or not.

Isaiah 41:10

Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.