Wooosh

Well, today was day one. My best description at the moment is WOOSH.

We arrived on time, to an absolutely stuffed waiting room - I guess that's what happens when your appointment time is one of the first times after lunch. We didn't have to wait too long, however, before we were led down a long hall full of nurses into a treatment room. There was one bed, and two big fancy chairs that reminded of business class on a plane. Thankfully, they put me in the chair, not the bed!

The next 45 min or so wasn't so pleasant. The first needle stick into my veins didn't work - my vein apparently ran away (smart vein). Then she whacked around my arm a few times and tried another spot that also didn't work. And it was at this point that happy Patti became very frustrated, anxious, Patti. The nurse said she was going to go get a colleague to assist. And at this point, I wanted to run screaming out of there - but instead, I found myself getting very overheated and starting to feel sick. Ole helped me to relax again and get my mind off the whole thing and then the nurse came back in to let me know that she had called a nurse down from the anesthesia department (now that has to be a nurse that knows what she's doing!), so I felt a bit better about that. She then wrapped a hot towel around my arm to convince my veins to come out of hiding. Then green hero nurse (regular nurses wear white - operation room nurses wear green) came in to try her turn at bat. She wanted to stick one spot very close to my hand, but the other nurse told her that it was better if it was between the wrist and elbow - so against her better judgment she tried it there, only for it not to work AGAIN. At this point, I was no longer looking - eyes closed, think happy thoughts! Green nurse then stuck where she wanted to in the first place and got the silly thing in my arm. WHEW.

Then I sat there while red juice went first, then saline, then clear juice, then more saline, until the whole process was complete. My only reaction at the time it was happening was this really weird feeling in my nose - like I was about to sneeze, but not sneezing, just all tingly. So, I left the hospital feeling like, okay, I can handle this.

And I could - until a few hours passed. First, and they do warn you about this, you pee red. And yep, it's weird. It's the red drug that causes it, not blood, which is I'm sure why they warn you about it. Approximately 2 hours after finishing treatment, my body decided that it had to sleep.. NOW.

Slept on the couch, and woke up about 90 min later, but laid there trying to figure out how exactly to physically get up. Nope, couldn't do it on my own. Ole had to help me stand up. I wanted to get to the other end of the house so I could change into sweats - I managed to get down there, change, use the restroom, and then made it about halfway back before I just flopped into the nearest chair. Ole made up the guest room bed as it's down at this end, where everything else is, so I crawled into that and promptly fell back to sleep.

I did manage to eat dinner and then sleep again. The hospital told me to try to go for a walk each day, so we just not took the dogs around the block. I'm ready to go back to bed very soon.

So, the best description of day one is just WOOOSH.

(They did, however, warn me that any nausea is probably going to appear on day 2 and 3, so we'll see).