I lived

A great day all in all. My brother Joe arrived this morning to put in my new hot water heater. I had one of those 'green' jobbies, electric tankless which hung on the wall and that's about all it did. Not much with the hot water. So I exchanged it (see: garbage pail) for a 40 gallon tank which I can go hug out in the laundry room any time I want.

Then sister Mary showed up and off we went to the Dyson Cancer Center in Po'town. As we were pulling up I thought how odd it was that my ex- and I were friends with John Dyson so many years ago when he ran for Lt. Gov. in our state. Who knew I'd be using the cancer center his sister endowed at the medical center.

I had some blood work drawn at the outset and then it was off to the chemo room. There they plied me with benadryl, decadron and then prilosec IV before starting the first chemo agent. I was about 15 minutes into that when I got massive bone pain. Indescribable as I've never felt like that before. I chalked it up at first to sitting in the chair so I got up to walk to the ladies and could barely walk. And in minutes I was in tears. Paula, my RN tour guide, tells me that she's not seen that reaction before. So the med gets turned off and I receive more decadron. 45 minutes later we start over and this time I do just fine. No pain at all. Although I've now consumed more steriods than Mark McGuire did in his freshman season. I'll probably be up all night cleaning.

Now I'm home having walked the dogs, fed them and myself and settling in for the night. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings. Once the steroids are finished on Tuesday I'm thinking I'm in for a big crash. We shall see.

I do know that the love, prayers, thoughts and support of all of my friends and family have made this journey so much easier. I am a lucky woman.