A disappointing day

Hello again.

It's Toxic Tuesday again, it seems to comes round very quickly, so, I was back to the hospital today for another dose of poison.

My routine now is that I have to give blood first, so off I went went to the day ward to see the phlebotomist. On my way in I was given one of these by the very nice lady at reception, who asked me had I see one of these before.  My eyes lit up, as I had indeed seen one before.

The last time I sat somewhere with one of these was in Vapianos Italian restaurant in London, and I was informed that when the gadget started buzzing and flashing, the pizza I had ordered would be ready!  So you can imagine how my hopes went up this morning when I saw this lying waiting for me on the reception desk!  Is it pizza for lunch today?  Yummy!  I can’t wait.

How foolish of me.  The receptionist, looking at me like I was deranged, politely told me it was just programmed to tell me when the nurse was ready to inflict my first round torture of the day.  The blood test.  That was the first disappointment.  All I got when it started buzzing was a smiling nurse with a large needle in her hand.   

When she was finished administering her round of torture, I went down to NM dreaming of pizza that I wasn’t going to have.  After the usual routine of weighing in, blood pressure readings, oxygen saturation levels, of which all of the numbers were very good, I was sent in to sit in my chair and await my weekly cocktail of poison.  One of NM assistants came and sat beside me and went through all my ailments from the previous week.  I listed the usual one’s, tiredness, dry throat, tingling fingers and toes, nothing unusual for a patient on chemotherapy.  She kept asking me were there any more?  Could I think of anything else that may be causing me upset or pain?  Anything unusual at all?  I was beginning to think it was a test and I wasn’t getting all the answers correct.  I felt I should really make some up, just to test her.  Turns out, there was a method to her madness.  She had my blood test results.

My blood results showed that my count in one particular reading was too low.  I asked her to explain it to me, which she did, but I'm none the wiser.  The culprit is the count that is pertinent to my immune system, which was far to low.  So low in fact, that there would be no chemotherapy for me today!  For some strange reason that really upset me.  Imagine being told that you’re not going to be poisoned today. You would think one would be very happy to hear that!  But, for the second time in the space of a couple of hours I was very disappointed.  I know that sounds mad, but I just wanted to get it done and chalk number 3 up on the board.  So number 3 is going to have to wait till next week, when hopefully my blood count numbers will have gone back up.  *Big sigh*.

NM seemed to be delighted to wave me out of her Oncology Suite and her parting words to me were “enjoy your week off”.

And you see, that is the most disappointing thing of all. I actually had a weeks holiday this week, starting today, and I was going to go to New York with some of my family for my sisters birthday (she’s having one of those birthdays with a zero in it, I'm not saying which one!!).  But I am not allowed to fly so my trip had to be cancelled.  They all went off early this morning without me. There’s no words to describe how disappointing that was....

But before they went, my brother-in-law gave me this guy:

His name's ‘Keamo’ and he comes with his own healing crystals hanging round his neck. (I thought those dogs were suppose to have brandy in a barrel around their necks, just my luck to get a crystal!).  So at least I have him to look at this evening.

Happy Birthday Deirdre!  Don’t be too disappointed that I’m not there with you.  I hear they do great pizza in New York...