Bad Day Gone Good

It's Wednesday. Two more days of chemotherapy (this week). It is kicking Chris' butt. We get to the doctors office at about 8:30 every morning. He's usually hooked up to hydration for a bit before he starts his chemo drugs. The Cisplatin is no good for his kidneys so he has to drink tons of water and pee all day. He's not happy about that. Before he's given the chemo drugs he's given an anti nausea shot, Kytril, it seems to be working. He's also given a steroid shot to help keep the fatigue away, dexamethasone, which is kind of  working. He's then given the Etoposide which takes about an hour to drip. When that is done he gets his Cisplatin which takes about thirty minutes to drip. If it is a Tuesday then after Cisplatin he gets Bleomycin which takes about ten minutes to drip.

You get all that?

Also, since we are self-pay, no insurance, all of this is going through an IV. An IV that he either has to get every single day or he can decide to leave it in for the week (and hope it works when we get there the next morning) He's had one in the last two days, Monday he just wanted the damn thing out when he was finished. I don't blame him. If we had insurance then he could have a PICC line or a Port-a-Cath. But alas, he must be poked and prodded every time he needs to have a lab and/or medication. It's driving him nuts. Here he is at home with it all wrapped up-

See that lump toward the top? Yeah, that's the IV. It irritates him but it's better to come home with the IV than to have to get a new one every single day. I'm still trying to convince him of that fact myself. Poor Chris.

Wanna know what we've been doing all day? Well let me show you, besides playing Phase 10 we've been laying on the couch-

He pretty much has no appetite. But when he's hungry, he's starving! The nurse yesterday said I'd have to go to the grocery store by Friday because the steroid shot he's getting every day will make him hungry eat like a pig.

Had to go to the store today.

He needs lots and lots and lots of protein to keep up his energy so his body can make new healthy! cells. Here was breakfast this morning-

He looks very happy to be having his picture taken at 7 in the morning huh? In case you can't see, that's eggs, sausage, milk, water and when he was finished he had toast. Two hours later he had yogurt and chips (not together because that would be gross) but yeah. He hasn't had much of an appetite or at least much doesn't sound good to him so when he says he wants something I run in and make it before the craving passes.

Hang on I'm getting to the good, best part of the day next...

So I have this friend, her name is Arena. We've kept in touch since high school and she's pretty much the only old friend I see kinda sorta regularly? Anyway here we are-

It's old as you can see but hey, my double chin is less prominent here. So that's Arena. She sent me something in the mail today. Totally brightened up our day. Yes I said our, Chris was totally into it as well. Here's what she sent-

It's Pioneer Woman's Cookbook. You see, I've kind of been blog stalking her for a little while, little did I know so has Arena. Well she just did a book tour and I wasn't able to make it into Austin when she was at Book People, so Arena caught her when she was in Dallas and she sent me this! Aw. The pictures! Wow she did all of the photography for the book and it's so awesome. I want an awesome camera, and her mad photo taking skills. Oh and of course there are recipies, duh. Like, yummy we are going to gain 59 lbs just reading this, recipes. Oh, and did I mention this?

That's me!! Totally awesome. Made my day! And Chris was drooling over the thing so look who might actually eat a couple of meals tomorrow instead of just the one. Thanks Arena!

Sorry, I can't stop looking at it. Alright, I better wrap this up because I'm pretty sure Chris is passed out on the floor. I need to get him into bed! Thanks everyone for reading this crazy long post about our crazy long day :)