Well, we accomplished the herceptin today with one poke. Wrist area to boot. It went very smoothly. And I was sitting back and checking email on my iphone and not paying attention when Chris yells mom mom hey that is going way too fast. And I look and yep that was dripping too fast for my taste. They can run herceptin in 45 minutes. But, they start you off at 1 1/2 hours and well since I didn't have any trouble at that speed I haven't allowed them to speed it up. The savings in time just wasn't worth any trouble it might bring me. And for those wondering what trouble that could be, I'm talking about an allergic reaction. I don't know if slower is less likely to cause one but I do know if an allergic reaction happens at a slower rate they can stop it fast. Anyway, I am from the school of thought that if it's not broken don't fix it. But, here we were running away at a fast speed here. So I wave down one of the nurses and she slowed it down a bit for me. The nurse that set me up is usually there only one day a week. I think we have only danced once before and I think that was for one of my chemos so she didn't know.
Well all was fine and we were out of there a lot quicker with it being speedy, it took an hour. Since nothing happened I think I will go ahead and let them run it at an hour.
One of the nurses came by and asked if my vein had co-operated today. Yes it had and then I told her that the only thing different that I had been doing was lifting some hand weights. I told her I have a squeezing exercise thing but that I had read that hand weights can help so I was doing that too. AND she says oh yeah no wonder it went better today.
WHAT? Why didn't you tell me that could help.
Well, she says that's a pretty pro active thing to do.
Yeah? and the point would be?
Well, we don't push these things.
Sheesh a suggestion would be helpful though
Well, most people just wouldn't bother anyway.
Oh well, the truth finally comes out. They just get tired of giving helpful suggestions and then have people ignore them. Also there is the factor that they could give these helpful hints and it still could go poorly. If enough scar tissue builds up in the vein no amount of weight lifting is going to do any good. The weight lifting helps the vein pop and can make cannulating easier. But it is not guarantee.
Then we headed off to Fashious Island for lunch and to kill time before I had to go to the day hospital for my Lupron shot. Now I told the nurse not to put a band aide on after the shot because at the Hoag Day hospital they use band aides with crazy glue on them. I'm telling you it hurts like Hell pulling those off. So she said okay. And we are yaking as I'm pulling my pants up and I'm just not paying that much attention. It strange how after a while you are just kind of on automatic pilot with all these procedures. It wasn't until I got home and was changing out of my pants to put on some PJs that I realized that no she didn't put a band aide on me but she had taped a cotton ball to my ass. Sexy. Like a stoned playboy bunny with her tail way off centered.
And we went home. Aw sweet home and we are hunkering down now to wait for the rain that is suppose to come our way.
I'm over the flu and feeling well again. So tomorrow I'm going to attempt to get back to my daily walking. If it is raining it will be taking place at the mall.
Time to get back into the swing of things.
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