Dina's notes on visit with me during 8th cycle

I got there around 3. Your mom was there. Your roommate was there, although preparing to leave. It's the first one you've had that you actually liked, and want to ask (the hospital?) if the two of you could room together again in the future if you're on similar chemo cycle schedules. After she left, we talked about her sarcoma, how she was/wasn't diagnosed, her treatments, and her prognosis. You also wanted to ask to move to her side of the room once it was ready. We talked about your selective refusal of drugs to get rid of the dopiness but also to control the nausea. This time you're refusing only the decadron as a regular infusion (accepting the atavan every 4 hours), accepting it only when you get the kytril before the chemo. We had a difference of opinion as to what the decadron was supposed to do you (side-effect wise), and you looked it up on-line and that didn't really solve any mysteries.

We talked about my conference that I had just returned from, and about the inefficiency of my school program (I hope none of them are hacking in!) in trying to get going on my dissertation--who needs to talk to whom in what order for me to be able to defend a proposal and get going on the research. An update since then is that I finally heard from my advisor this morning who gave recommendations for non-trivial revisions I'll need to make to my proposal to defend it, which means I'll likely miss my goal of doing it before the end of this semester. Oh well. We talked about Thanksgiving plans and everyone going to your parents' house but who's going to stay around for how long. I told you about Neal's exciting asylum trial the day before. We talked about your urine output, how it wasn't as much as you would like, and how they weren't testing it as much as you would like them to. You wondered if they could give you a bunch of dipsticks so you could test it yourself. The test that morning showed trace blood. Tom called and asked you to e-mail him something you had typed for him. You did it, and stayed on-line until you heard back from him.

Your doctor came by and you asked for clarification about what she had said about your lung mets, whether she would remove them, and if so, if she would do it all at once or a little at a time, and how the surgery would go. You had mentioned earlier that you might be interested in keeping them around as a diagnostic tool to gauge how the chemo is working. I wish I "got" more of this conversation, but I came in too late to the on-going discussion and don't really understand everything about it. Your mom mentioned to the doctor about my being on PS-341 and we talked about its results in myeloma and the lack of results in sarcomas. You asked about the blood in the urine, and she said that as long as it continues to be trace, she's going to keep going with the chemo.

After your mom left, I told you about my on-going parent issues (huge denial) and yours (lots of involvement). We talked about the Gilda's meeting two days earlier that you missed. Within minutes of the other side of the room being cleaned up, a nurse came in to say you were getting a roommate, before you could ask to switch over to the window side. We played a little skip-bo, and I headed out. When I left, you said it was time to bicycle, but you were likely going to take a nap instead.

Copyright © 2003 The Shriver Family: Last modified: 01/06/04.