Overall, I am intrigued by how impersonal it all is. The questions before, do you have kidney issues, other cancers, and the list went on. I realize they probably have to be impersonal. I think they must not understand how monumental it all is. It just all feels a little off. All they keep saying is "are you ok". I am not sure what that means. Well, I'm ok. I'm not claustrophobic. I'm not going to burst into tears on you. Or throw up, even though that is how I feel almost all day, most days. At some point I am gong to scream "No, I am not ok." But I am too polite to scream at these very pleasant people who are doing what they have to do to take care of me. Today or maybe just not yet, I can't get my mind around the fact that I have cancer.
I only have one good vein. Every blood test I have ever had has been done has been on my right arm. I have this great thick bold vein, right down the center of my right arm. Perfect. Even the bad phlebotomy people can work with that vein and not turn me black and blue. Well, today was the end of that. I think they are never going to take blood from that arm again. When I tried to get her to put the IV on that side she just kept repeating but that is the side with the cancer. And this side has no cancer, right? And then I tried again, and she said, that is the side with the biopsy right? And this side no, right? She is right. But the vein in my left arm is crummy, near the bone and it took her, a talented nurse (you know how you can tell from how they are sticking you), a long time to get it working for the IV. I can see the black and blue from here on out. Not from her but from every inexperienced person drawing blood in the future.
2500 pictures in 40 minutes while you are laying perfectly still. You have to lay face down like you are on a massage table but it is not nearly that comfortable and bony pieces of the table and the machine stick into you. Then you are pushed into a long metal tube. The entire time, I felt this immense pressure on my forehead and on my breast bone.
I tried hard to meditate, just focusing on the in and out of my breath. Thank goodness for my yoga training as the banging, clanging and whirring of the machines was SO LOUD that you wear ear plugs and still it seems like you are in a freaky disco with a slightly off kilter hip hop beat. And I just kept counting my breath while the tech would say, this one is 8 minutes, this next is 4 minutes, now one minute rest and then 6 minutes more. Doing nothing but breathing, the time went pretty quickly.
I bought Oreos yesterday and made brownies today. In my world, everything is better if you just have more chocolate.
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