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12:45am
Just got some Blue juice.  Next wake-up will be at 2:00am.  I get a long nap here in between.  (Now you know why I am so tired when I get home!)  Just letting you know I’m awake.  Lol  Going to sleep.

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5:00am
My staff was great overnight.  I was able to get the meds I needed without coming out of REM sleep!  I woke at 2 and 4am, but I didn’t wake far enough to pull me out of bed.

6:00am
I have been dozing  here in my bed.  Watching TV and the back of my eye lids alternatively. Lol  I am having trouble talking, but this is probably due to my Fibromyalgia more than the Chemo.  Nouns, you see.  Fibromites have problems with remembering the names if things sometimes.  I did just get another dose of the Methylene Blue and the Thiamine is hanging.  I can feel that they were needed.

8:00am
More snoozing brought me to breakfast time and my tray.  I got out of  bed and into my day clothes.  And I went down to the pantry and made myself a banana coffee smoothie!  I can’t drink hot coffee while on this chemo.  But cold coffee is ok, go figure.  It’s the smell.  It’s all in avoiding the smell.   I blended up some milk and ice and threw in a banana I had been saving for such a purpose, and some carnation instant breakfast powder (Only had strawberry today . . .) And then some coffee and more ice.  Yum!   My tech just laughed at me.

I am back on my game today.   I got more sleep and  I have the blue stuff.  I am dressed before 8:30am.  That’s a good sign.  I am going to have my walk outside before the Flock of Docs come swooping over me.  Have a little good morning with the sun and the SON.

I just talked with my intern.  He says my walking papers will be ready for the moment of escape.  The moment the last drop drips and they take out the lines going to my port, I can be gone.  Not that I don’t like it here . . . Just that I like it home better.  I miss my family. I want to go home.   My sister, Pam, will be coming up sometime today. She is staying over tonight and taking me home in the morning.  What a sweet peach she is.

Plans for the day:  I have a ton of paper strips cut and ready for beading.  That is my project of the day.   I have to get my things packed up by the evening time.  “Other than that, I am open God.   If you have something needing doing, just holler.  Choose Me, God.”

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11:00am
I had my walk outside.  I tried to take some pictures of where I hang out around  here.  (Taking pictures here is tricky because you cannot have any other patient in your shots for privacy reasons.)   The first is the 4th floor lobby by request.

Lol  Now, outside were I sit in the grass and breath in fresh air.   By myself it was hard to do!  See my shadow waving to you?

Lol  I finally found someone to take the picture for me.

After my walk, went back to the room and started working on my beads.  The pastor on duty came in to talk.  She had visited me a couple days ago and talked and prayed with me.  This time she wanted me to know that she did remember meeting me before.

“I remember now meeting you briefly during your first week here.  You were scared.”
“I was.  We had been told that this chemo would be horrific. My surgeon in Oregon told my sister that I wouldn’t be a mother, wouldn’t be wife, I would barely be human.  I brought that fear with me instead of my faith. And look what happened to me.”
“Now your attitude is different and you are doing so well.  Maybe God needed you to see how bad it could be.”
“Maybe your right there.  How does one get through this without faith?”
“They don’t.   I see people rolled up on their side in their bed in a dark room with the covers over their head.  They don’t move.  Just waiting for it to be over.  They don’t even want to lift their head to say hello to me.  I don’t have to pray with them all the time.  I can just sit and talk with them.  But they don’t want to visit.  I think If I was in the their place, I would want someone to come and talk with me.”
“But they don’t.”
“They don’t.  I come here and I see you and it’s so different.  I see what I want for them here with you. Some people have such a bad time with chemo, but you . . .”
“I don’t have any other way to explain it but to attribute it to my faith.  I have angels here helping me.  I have a hedge of protection around me.  I have people praying for me too.  I have my God to help me.   I keep busy so that the devil can’t get in to scare me again.”
“You are an inspiration to me.”

She prayed for me then.  And thanked God for the Gift she got from me.    I don’t tell you this as a braggart.  But I want to share with you what how God can use you too.  You may not see it as an important role to play - Playing Christian.  But they are watching you too.  But if they watch you and just see the bumper sticker fish speeding through the red light . . . What impression have you given them?

After my visit with the Pastor, the Doctors came around.  I had resumed my bead making and was in the middle of a tiny one - harder to keep track of those tiny ones.  The doctor in charge of the group sat on my bed and asked, “What are you making today!  I love to come see you in the mornings just to see what your up to!”   Then she turned to the younger doctors and said, “You people go on and finish the rounds.  I am going to stay here!”
They all laughed.  And looked closer at my beads.    “If you are able to manipulate the tiny beads, your hands must be doing better than yesterday.”
“Oh, yah. Thank you for that.  I haven’t turned blue yet.  Not even a bit sad.”  Hehehe  “I am doing much better.  I got more sleep too.  That helps.”
“OK then you should be ready to go home in the morning.  Your paperwork will be ready.  You don’t have to wait on us.”
“That’s good, because I wasn’t going to!  I want to go home!”

And with that they were gone.  All of them.

It’s nearly lunch time.  I am going to hang with these beads.  I might go to the art studio today in the other building.   It will depend on whether or not they give me the medication to make me pee out this fluid I have been holding on to.  I’m not taking my top hat with me!  All the fluids entering and exiting my body is measured.  They have to match up  Their not measuring up.

I might also take a nap. . .  I am getting more Methylene Blue at noon.  I think I might be needing it.

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1:40pm
I am tethered to the toilet. I have one leg swollen with fluid.  They gave me medication to get it running out the other direction.  I won’t be making the art studio again today.  It’s not a big deal.  The fluid will go down over the next few hours.  I just need to stay put until it does.  The Methylene Blue was delayed an hour and I could tell.  My eyes were floaty and my hands shaky.  I get the thiamine going home.  I don’t think I can take the Methylene home.  I wonder what will happen when it wears off. . .

I have Pam’s cot all ready for her.

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7:00p

I slept through the afternoon.  Except for the times I went to the potty.  It’s shift change now.  I wonder who I will get for the last night.  I have had different nurses all week, but the same tech during the day.  Today I told her that I was going home tomorrow.  She was happy for me but sad too.  She said I was the funniest patient on the floor.  Lol

I finished the making all the paper strips into beads. I haven’t counted them but there must be over 70beads there.  I’ll count them when I glaze them.  I need to start packing up.

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8:30pm
I am getting loaded down here with all my extras -  the Methylene Blue, A steroid for nausea, something else? . . . And I am finishing up the chemo here in a few minutes so those bags will be removed. I am packed.  I can’t wait to get home.

My left leg is still swollen. I have a good explanation for the swelling on the one side only.  It is the same side as my surgery.  The fluid went down one side only because I no longer have clear equal connections to both legs. Interesting.

9:00pm
I am going to post this early.  I will be getting my chemo lines removed here in a minute and I am watching LOST!   Lol   Pam is making her way up here now.  I am going home in the morning!  I can’t wait to hug my husband and  hold my babies. And sleep in my own bed.