Tuesday, 4-5-16 (Round 4, Day 1)
Leaving home was a lot harder this morning than all of the other times. I am pretty sure it will get worse, too. I almost thought I was going to have to drag Mike out the door. I waited patiently though, because it broke my heart to see him cuddling in bed with the girls and hearing Molly say, "Daddy, I don't want you to go to the hospital." The hospital could wait.
So, here we are again. We got checked into the Chemo Hotel at 9:00 this morning. Getting admitted to a hospital always seems to take a long time, but this morning everything moved pretty quickly for once.
The bag of Rituxum got started at noon and just finished at 3:30. We are just waiting on the nurse to come back in to hang the Zofran (anti-nausea) and the Chemo cocktail. He will be on 12 hour bags again, and we talked to the Pharmacist about increasing the rates to keep everything going on schedule. He is one of those guys that sits down, listens to you, like, really listens, and then actually does what he says he's going to do. I love those people. And I want to be more like that.
The goal is to get Mike out of here on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning. One less night of not sleeping in the hospital is a huge deal to Mike (and to me!) so I would like to do everything we can to accommodate him on this one request. I think the team here is going to try their hardest, too!
I am going to have to leave early today so I can go to a Visitation for my best friend's grandfather who passed away. Through Mike's illness, I have learned a very important lesson. Show Up. I know we can't all make it to every wedding, birthday party, funeral, etc, but we should try harder. There have been friends who have shown up to visit Mike, travel from long distances and short to the benefit dinners, drop dinners off at our house... All of those things mean more to us than anyone could imagine. (I am not insinuating that he is wanting visitors around the clock, so sit back down!) What I mean, is that those gestures are the most important things you can do to show someone you care. Just being there. You know what I mean? Thank you, to those friends and family that have been there for us. I am sorry, to those of you whom I've missed things for, and I'll be there, for those of you who might need a friend down the road.
XoXo
Robin
Comments (2)
You are darling. I share the same wishes and need to be better at it to, Robin. Healing prayers for all of you!! Hugs!
You are speaking the truth Robin. Some doctor jokes to pass the time: Q. Did you hear about the guy that lost his whole left side: A. Don't worry, he's alright now. Q. What do you call a doctor that is always on-call? A. An oncologist And, I'll leave you with a true story (I pinky-swear it's true): A man goes to the doctor and complains that his wife can't hear him. "How bad is it?" the doctor asks. "I have no idea", says the husband. "Well, please test her. Say something 20 feet away, and if she doesn't hear you, get closer and say the same thing until she does. That way we'll have an idea of her range of hearing loss." So the man goes home and sees his wife in the kitchen chopping up vegetables for dinner. From 20 feet the man says: "What are we having for dinner?" No answer. From 10 feet, same thing. From 5 feet, same thing. Finally he's standing right behind her. "What's for dinner?" She turns around, looks at him and says "For the fourth time, beef stew!"