Update from Friday, Saturday, & Sunday

Good evening,
Sorry it took me all weekend to let you know how the end of the week went for me. Actually, Friday was long, but it was an easy day just sitting in that recliner getting infused with 1000ml of iron. This took place after my radiation. I arrived in the infusion room about 10:30 and they had to put a line into my hand because my port was being used for the chemo. They first gave me about 100ml of iron as a trial bag which took about 30 minutes, then they had to wait 30 minutes to see if i was allergic to it, then they gave me 2 small bags of allergy medicine, benedryl and epenphren? and wait for about 20 minutes to see if I reacted to them, then they started 5 hours of the iron infusion. I walked out of the infusion room, being the last one, at 6:10pm.

This is not the same place that I had gotten my two bags of blood. I found out what the difference is about a transfusion as aposed to an infusion. A transfusion (blood) is to put something back into the body that the body can produce on its own, but is low on...an infusion is something they are putting in the body that the body needs but can not produce it on its own...
The body needs iron to make new hemoglobin which comes in from foods and vitamins and without iron, the body can not make hemoglobin with out it.So my body could make hemoglobin, just not fast enough to make me feel better, so they were helping boost that problem.

Any way, I felt great Friday night, spent the night at my sister Jane's house in Noblesville and she then took me into the hospital on Saturday for my 5th radiation treatment followed by the nurse removing my chemo pump...tubes, needles, and pouch. I felt so free. All of the bandages were off and my incisions looked great, the pump looked great and it was painless.

Sunday I got to take a normal shower, it was great. Tomorrow, Monday, I plan on going in to school and do a little work before my appointment at 1:15.

My appointment will consist of some blood work, radiation, and insert another infusion of chemo that will last 96 hours. I will have radiation every day all week and the chemo bag will come off on Friday...sounds like a pretty easy week.

So many people have offered to take me to Indy and I have some people driving me to Indy this week. I think we are fine for right now on drivers this week. Now next week may be different.

We have also had so many people offering to bring out food. Right now, we have enough to make it through this week. We are so grateful for all of the generosity of everyone. Please know that we appreciate it all. I will keep you posted as I start my 2nd week of chemo/radiation...Judi