First of all, thank you all so much for your support. You guys give me all the feels and the outflow of positivity even from folks I've never interacted with is just so amazing. I hope to be able to individually comment back on your comments in the near future, but for now I just wanted to say thank you.
Today I had a PET scan which was an interesting experience. They inject a radioactive sugar and it localizes to areas of high metabolic activity, such as cancer cells. Throughout the whole thing, I couldn't decided if I wanted to sing the Spiderman theme or "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons :P Basically waited 45 minutes for it go where it needed to go in my body and sat in the PET scan (which was kind of like an extra long CT machine) for 20 minutes while trying to be still (so hard) and kind of nodding off throughout the process because it was quite and dark and sleeping in a hospital can be a challenge, especially with tender surgery sites from my biopsy (and now my port). I hope I have superpowers now! I'll be climbing up the sides of buildings in no time.
A few hours after my scan, I had my power port implanted. It's essentially a central line that goes goes into my vena cava that they can do everything vein related with, like drawing blood, giving chemo and other meds, giving fluids, etc. Once it isn't sore, it will be the best body mod a girl can buy. I've been making jokes about my extreme vascular piercing in my head all day :D You got gauged ears and nipple rings? Psh, that's nothing! I've got a subcutaneous vein piercing! Booya! I also told my vet school group of friends that I was so jealous of Sarah's breast implants that I up and got an implant of my own. Gotta keep that inappropriate sense of humor up and running for this process!
I get my first chemo treatment tomorrow. It consists of 4 different compounds whose names I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's typical ABVD chemo protocol for Hodgkin's lymphoma. Two of the drugs are doxirubricin (which can make your pee red! like beets!) and vinblastine, both of which I am a bit familiar with from my veterinary oncology course. Can't remember the other two right now and am too lazy to Dr. Wikipedia it. My current nurse (who is totally badass, by the way. He's doing a polar bear plunge tomorrow in this absurdly cold MN weather for Special Olympics. (also, made him laugh when I asked if leg hair or pubes fell out with chemo :D) If I knew he was single I'd be trying to set up all my single lady and/or guy friends up with him :P) did a lot to ease some of my anxiety and I trust that he was truthful. He said that a lot of people do pretty well it all. Obviously any and all side effects can happen but most, especially GI which is what freaks me out most as vomiting is my least favorite thing to do in the world, are over with within 48 hours, while the chemo is still in your system, or less and you can resume normalish eating and such for the rest of the time. Things like oral sores (yuck), severe drop in blood cells (double yuck) and hairloss (fun in a twisted, bizarre way...I kind of want to see if my current hair is long enough for Locks of Love and just buzz it off so I can give it to someone who needs it as I'm not going to be using it and it might as well do something useful aside from just falling out and being wasted. Also, I'd like to help someone who is worse off or more frightened than I am, even if it is just a wig.). We'll see what happens. Can only wait and see at this point...
Other fun fact of the day: apparently the hospital pharmacy has pretty much a fully stocked bar with beer and most forms of hard liquor. It's more of an end of life type of treatment/kindness rather than a booze for all sick people situation, but I found it amusing nonetheless. I've decided to call these pharmacists either pharmtenders or barmacists and that they learn mixology as part of their continuing education. Some of their drink specials include the Fuzzy Umbilicus and Dopamine on the Beach.
I think it's time to go round up my nurse for some more tylenol for my port soreness and ponder a bit of a bottom half bath so I'm not gross for chemo tomorrow and perhaps a hair wash if Aaron and I are particularly ambitious and adventurous.
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