So, the vacation is over...

For one week, we had no cancer-related activities, concerns or appointments to attend to.  We talked, of course - we always talk - but our conversations were pedestrian:  Did you remember to pick up milk and toilet paper?  We made mundane decisions:  Sushi or Chinese take-out tonight?  We watched too many episodes of Mad Men.  I made potato-leek soup, and started knitting an infinity scarf. 

Well, okay - enough of that shit.  Time to get back to reality.

On Friday, I had a pre-chemo haircut.  My stylist, Angela, is a goddess; I asked for a super-short pixie cut, but instead she gave me what I really needed:  a little something left on top to play with, style up with gel, or part to one side.  I think there's even enough for a barrette or two - might have to borrow something fun from my grand-daughter.

So, here's before:

And here's after:

When I start to shed, I can just blame it on the cat.

Today was the final day of pre-testing.  I've already had the chest x-ray (no spots on my lungs - hurray!) and EKG (looked great); today was the echocardiogram with contrast, and the full body bone scan with radioactive dye.

I'm at the hospital super-early in the Nuclear Medicine department for my radioactive dye injection.  Yeah, I remember the NM department from my sentinel lymph node biopsy and the radioactive tracer injection, and I think I started to hyperventilate.  Didn't help that my sweet little nurse, Arielle, has the word "student" in bold letters on her nametag.  She takes me into the room directly across from the room I had been in for the SNB injection, and on the tray is this thing.  The only way I can describe it is that it looks like a piece of lead pipe standing up on it's end; from inside you can see just the tip of a metallic syringe sticking out.  I look at this thing, then I look at Arielle, then I see her nametag again, then I look at the thing, then I look at the door...

"I had an SNB a couple of weeks ago, without lidocaine," I try to say as nonchalantly as possible.  "Is this going to be like that?"

Arielle looks at me - really, she can't be more than 22, what a sweetheart - and says, "Oh no.  I know which doctor does that - I'm so sorry for your experience!"  I hear blah-blah about why he goes without lidocaine, and as I'm thinking about making a break for it she says, "This won't hurt at all.  We use a small needle and it's not a big deal, really."

Sure enough, she finds a vein, minimal pin-prick-poke, and I'm done.  Now, I have to wait for three hours.

So, I run some errands.  I knit my scarf.  I go back for my Echo.  The cardiology RN explains they need to do the last part of the echo with a "bubble contrast" (okay, aren't bubbles in my veins supposed to kill me?  I've seen ER and House and Marcus Welby and Law & Order).  We spend 45 minutes viewing and listening to my heart from all sorts of angles.  In some ways it was life-affirming and loving, and I was glad the RN let me watch.

Time for bubble contrast - which requires an IV.  The RN looks at my veins and decides to call in a more experienced RN - who calls IV therapy after openly admitting my veins are "the smallest I've seen in years!"

(Seriously - I am really tired of being so damned special and unique)

IV therapy finds a vein on the side of my wrist bone, and after several pokes gets it started.  I didn't cry this time - perhaps I'm getting used to this, perhaps I just realize I'd better get used to it because it's not going to get any better anytime soon. 

The bone scan was an interesting experience.  I borrowed a picture of the exact machine from some poor little kid's blog:

The plate on top comes down just above my nose, then moves all the way down my body, incrementally, until it has scanned me from the top.  Takes about 10 minutes.  Just a little scary while it's directly over my face.  Then, another plate underneath me moves and takes the bottom of my body.  Up on the computer screen are my scans - me, completely naked of skin and muscles and organs and everything, just my bones.

I quickly realize that when I lie comfortably, I am actually bending to the right.  Kinda weird.  But anyway...

So Arielle then takes detailed individual scans of my pelvis, my chest, and my head - "places where, well, where the doctor would be looking for something."  In English, that means they want scans of the places where metastatic cancer would show up first.  Okay.  Take your time, Arielle.

And this concludes our chemo pre-testing.

So after a morning of tests, it's two days off until port placement on Thursday.  I'm much happier about that, especially after today; I cannot imagine trying to do IV chemo with the veins I've inherited from my mother.

A couple more days of rest, relaxation, and mundane conversations.  But every day is a day to be grateful, being alive and able to fight this battle.  Even if it means being poked, prodded and scanned along the way.