Just wanted to do a journal post about my experience yesterday. It was and still has been a very emotional experience.
Yesterday morning I checked in at the Corvallis Clinic Oncology desk. There was lots of info to input and then I was taken back to the treatment area. The nurse assigned to me was great, really sweet, kind and patient. She went over some more paperwork and talked with me about the treatment stuff and then we got started.
Getting started for IV or blood draw anything usually requires extra work for the nurses. Since I dont have veins that tend to cooperate. The nurse piled on the wonderfully warm hospital blankets and then wrapped my arm in a hot, wet washcloth AND a heating pad to see if she could bring some veins to the surface we could work with.
In the process of me waiting, several other patients came in. I was about in tears as I listened to and watched one other patient in particular. She spoke about how happy she and her husband were to have a "break" from her chemo during the holidays so she could just enjoy things. The break seemed to have been too much on this end though as she shared how she had become physically sick just thinking about having to start treatments again. She was still strugging while there at the clinic. I watched the face of her sweet husband as he tried to keep a light sense of humor, but I could see the pain and sadness in his eyes as he watched her. I couldnt keep from crying myself. It broke my heart to listen to them, and gave me a great appreciation and a sense of awe for the sweet nurses who devote their lives to helping others in these circumstances.
Several other patients came in with concerns severe enough to require help from the nurses to administer meds/flush out pic-lines embedded in their chests. I couldnt even begin to imagine what struggles they and their families have experienced.
I was there for my own health deficiencies, but watching and listening to others I cried for the fact that even with my struggles, it wasnt nearly as much as these other patients had and were going through.
As I tried to tell Preston about my experience this morning, I cried again just describing things.
I often wonder at the lessons I am supposed to learn at times like these. I was there because my own health has been in jeopardy, and we are just now finding help that we hope will help on my own road to healing. Is my lesson to continue to learn patience, to continue to learn to endure "all that the Lord would see fit to inflict upon me", to learn gratitude for the experience and the chance to endure, or is the greatest lesson to learn one of empathy? Is it something else that I am missing altogether?
In the last 24 hrs I have reflected back on some of the most difficult experiences we have had. I remember the words of blessings that specifically told me that they were not to help me, but to help me empathize with others who would need my help later.
That was definately true when we thought we had lost Ky. So many sweet friends struggled with loss that year. I struggled with guilt, as I struggled to give love and support, not understanding all the why's, not yet understanding that it wasnt my job to understand, only to give what I could, which really wasnt much at all as far as I could tell.
I wonder if again, that this experience is not only for my good, but because this experience is going to be needed later. That as I will sit week after week, watching and listening to others around me, that there are things I am going to need to hear or say or know. It has been heavy on my heart and my mind.
The cute nurse I had finally came over and got things going. She poked and rubbed my arm for awhile before she had a good choice. She was pretty good, esp considering she used the smallest needle she was allowed and had to thread a tiny tube into the vein. She was able to secure it in place and got me going. Knowing my history of extreme reactions to things, the nurses kept pretty close tabs on me. The only snag we really hit was that it stung and that it caused my arm to go a bit numb. They re-positioned my arm, and piled on more blankets. That seemed to help alot. All the activities I had brought with me ended up staying in the bag because moving my arm caused it to hurt. I ended up trying to read a book, but really with not much success at that either. Will have to do some thinking about things I want to take with me next time - maybe music or movies or conference talks or something...
They kept an eye on me, checking my arm to make sure things were ok. That 90 minutes was a pretty long time to just sit and try to keep my composure, I was having a hard time. Once the iron was in me, I sat another little bit while the line was flushed with saline. Then we hit a couple more tiny snags. The first was the nurse trying to get me to bleed on purpose back through the line. It didnt cooperate though and she had to do some fancy tweaking to finally get it to draw the blood back out. She said it was really important that she could get me to bleed so that she could confirm that the line was where it should have been. The second snag was when we were all done and I was ready to roll. I felt light-headed and had a sudden headache. When the nurse checked my blood pressure again it had dropped 10 points. She was a bit concerned, but not overly so. She made me sit and drink some more juice and we took things slowly until I felt ready to go. I think she was most concerned with me being ok enough to drive home on my own. I did ok though, and thankfully things were mostly quiet here at home for the afternoon.
I would say that this first experience was a smashing success - esp considering how well I usually DON'T do with stuff like IV's, nurses, hospitals, etc. I cant say that I am looking forward to 5 more weeks of this, or the monster blood draw the week after I am done with treatments. I can say that I know that I will be in good hands and that the nurses will be wonderful, and the care I will be given will be more than enough to meet my needs for the next several weeks.
I can also say that I will be doing alot of thinking about things, and leaving things just open-ended to what I am supposed to learn from all of this. Not sure what that is yet, and maybe I wont for a really long time, but maybe there will be something, just have to be watching for it.
Just a PS about Colton. He has seen the pediatric pyschologist finally, and we are again in holding pattern until we get the results back. We will be 99.9% sure we will have a conclusive ADHD diagnosis from 3 sources now. He will have a speech eval coming up this week, and will be meeting another new medical specialist. Lots on our plate, but hoping with more conclusive results from specialists it will at last give us the "fire power" we need to get his IEP in a final stage to meet all of his educational needs, and be able to seek the rest of the specialists that are currently on hold. Will post more as I have news to share.
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