Update for week of October 10
Well, I’m still here and have yet to experience any real side effects – not that I don’t think that’s on the future 
My first reaction is a full-time chemo infusion is a major drag – radiation is a piece of cake compared to chemo. That is not, of course, based on side effects (as I said, yet to come), but on pure inconvenience. You may find the following TMI if you don’t like details about dealing with sickness and treatment. Feel free to skip down a few paragraphs.
I go for radiation each morning (Mon-Fri) and all that requires is getting up a little earlier (in order to get it done before work), driving to the radiation oncology facility, partially undressing and putting on a “robe”, laying down on a hard table and having four zaps (one from each compass direction and none taking longer than about 10 seconds), getting up and redressing and going to work. As I said, not a major intrusion on my life. I expect that the eventual side effects will be more severe than the chemo, but the whole procedure is not a big deal.
For chemo, I get a needle inserted into my chest port every Monday morning. The needle is attached to a thin line which is attached to a plastic bottle about the size of a fat baby bottle, within which is my chemo dose for the week. I have it taken out every Friday afternoon so that I am free of all of the paraphernalia for the weekend – ah, lovely weekend! So there are two major problems with this methodology and I would have thought that someone would have figured out a much better method by now, but what the hey.
First, of course, is what to do with the bottle. Of course, it can’t just hang down knocking against one’s knees. That would kind of distort and put too much weight on the needle and would make it hard to walk. So you have to get some kind of carrying case. I got a leather fanny pack and that works fairly well except for that fact that you have to learn to sleep with it and that took a bit of adjusting. Nataliya has given me one of those small over the shoulder leather purses that I will try this week for daytime use. She’s had several friends who have gone through this kind of treatment and the purse worked well. I think it will be nicer to wear with clothes and not bulge out as much as the fanny pack does, but expect that I will still use the fanny pack at night because it’s more securely about my waist and I’ve now figured out how to sleep with it. Luckily, I am not a stomach sleeper and the line between the needle and the bottle doesn’t crimp easily.
Second problem, however, is more inconvenient. I don’t have a bathtub in my apartment – only a shower – and I am not allowed to get any water on the needle that is stuck in the port because the water would potentially introduce bacteria directly into the bloodstream since the needle and chemo are going directly into an artery. Obviously, that is not a good idea. So, without a bathtub (and I strongly dislike baths anyway – sitting around in dirty water – ugh), I am forced to compromise. I start with a shower for the lower half of the body (Robert has improvised a plastic bag for me to wear over the upper half). Then I follow that with washing my hair over the kitchen sink and finish up with a sponge bath for the upper torso. Adds at least 15 minutes to my morning routine. It was absolutely DIVINE this morning to take a shower again! You cannot believe! But at least I get three showers a week (or four, if you count the fact that I took a shower on Friday as soon as I got home from having the needle removed) and only have to do this four mornings a week.
So enough of the gory details.
Jane and I went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants Plouf (French and heavy emphasis on mussels done 6 or 7 different ways) and then to the theater on Wednesday night – the first play of our five play season series. It was a revival of a Hart-Kaufman play from the 30s called Once in a Lifetime. The plot is about three young vaudevillians who realize that vaudeville is dying and they think their chances of doing something else hang with talking pictures which have just started in Hollywood so they head for California. Three acts – supposed to be a comedy, but we did not stay for the third act. Shall I say it was okay, but not anywhere near interesting enough even though it was supposed to show how venal and corrupt the whole Hollywood culture was and is. Critics seemed to like it, but neither of us did. Have much higher hopes for the next play – first week in November – which is David Mamet’s Race. That’s about a white male VIP who is accused of raping a maid of color in a hotel – shades of Dominique Strauss-Kahn! – and Mamet is almost always good.
Robert came down early Monday morning to take me to my first radiation and chemo appointments. He went back to Santa Rosa on Wednesday afternoon and came back on Thursday, left again on Friday. I don’t need constant attention yet and he is putting his house in storage until he can find a full-time job so he needs to spend some time packing up since he has only two more weeks before he will be out of a home for the time being. He’ll be down early on Tuesday morning. We are working this out so he can spend enough time to get himself moved out before I really need him to be around.
Okay, now time for the picture show. I hope, because this no longer works quite like it used to, that the six pictures of the balloon ride I singled out for this blog are attached in some format. I’ll post and hope for the best.
