Tuesday May 3rd 2011- Day 120

It has now officially been 4 mos since this journey through hell has began. Has it really been that long? I finished chemo on March 24 and had surgery on April 7th..now I wait for the return of my hair which makes no signs of appearing. I pray it will grow back soon. Today I will need to meet with my oncologist and then have my first radiation treatment. I get dressed and ready and leave out with Miguel at my regular time. This will be the last day of this for the next 6 weeks. I get to GW Hosp MFA building and go up the first floor to the oncology department. I sign in and they call me to get my vitals. They check my weight, height and blood pressure and then tell me I need to have blood drawn. I tell her to take it from my arm, I dont want to go through the hassle of them taking it out my port. She says ok and pulls out a butterfly. She ties off my right arm and finds a vein. She hits the vein but the blood barely drips out. She pulls it out and tries a 2nd time. This time in the process of hitting the vein she hits a nerve. I feel a sharp piercing pain that shoots all the way to my elbow and down to my hand. I let out a scream and feel tears behind my eyes. Again the vein refuses to bleed. She moves the needle around in my vein and each movement sends a shooting pain through my arm. I finally beg her to take the needle out which she does and I try hard not to cry as I pull my arm away. She tells me they will have to draw blood out of my port. Whatever I dont care anymore. She takes me back to the infusion area and tells me to have a seat and wait. I take a recliner and start to cry behind my sunglasses. I hate this fucking hospital so much. I sit and wait and more than 40 minutes go past before a nurse finally tries to draw blood. Even through the port the blood refuses to come. My nurse Theresa orders a clot buster while the scheduler keeps coming back and forth asking if she can take me back. Theresa says no not yet. When the clot buster arrives she injects it into my line and tapes it down down so they can draw blood after I meet with Dr. Tabarra. I go back to the waiting area and they call me back. I meet with another oncologist who is happy for me about my pathology report and says he understands that I want to get my port out soon. He tells me they typically wait til after radiation is done but he will ask Dr. Tabarra and see. I show him the scar on my breast and he tells me he doesnt think it's anything but to go see Dr. McSwain to be sure. I say ok and he leaves the room to go talk with Dr. Tabarra. He returns along with Dr. Tabarra. Tabarra is happy for me that my pathology report is clean. He tells me that typically people keep the ports in because after surgery there is still residual cancer but since there isnt any lingering cancer the option is up to me. I tell him I dont want a reminder of what I've been through. That if I still had cancer I would of course keep it in but since I dont need more chemo I dont want it there. I have no intention of coming back once a month to get it flushed for the rest of my life. He agrees and says ok he will send a request for it to be removed. That I should have it scheduled before I leave. He tells me he doesnt need blood from me that day so I am pissed that I went through all this pain to find out he doesnt need blood. He leaves and I head back out front where they take me back to infusion area to have the line taken out of my port. Theresa hands me 2 pieces of paper so I can schedule my port removal. I head back to the waiting area and the scheduler calls me up to schedule my appointments. She tells me I need to meet with Dr Tabarra in 3 mos. Fine whatever. We schedule it for early August. After this she faxes over the order to have my port removed. She tells me they should call me within 2 days if not to call them. Got it. She tells me I have an injection scheduled for Thurs. I tell her to cancel that because it's the 6th round of chemo which isnt required since I already had surgery. She cancels it out. After this she hands me paperwork and I head out. It is now 11:10 and I have 20 mins to get to radiation. Before I leave though I decide to stop by and see if I can meet with Dr McSwain real quick to show her the scar and have her tell me that its ok. She has a minute and I show her the scar and she explains its just some swelling and should go away. She tells me to meet with the physical therapist to work out the tightness in my arm so I can raise my arm over my head again. She hands me the PT's card and I rush out of there to hurry over to radiation. I arrive at 11:35 for my 11:30 appointment. They take me down and I change quickly. Today they explain will take just a bit longer because they have to make some final alignments and give me more tattoos. Ok fine. They adjust the machine and call out calibrations and draw marks all over my right breast with a magic marker. She finally applies the ink and sticks me with a needle to place the tattoos. After that they quickly give me 2 shots on each side of radiation. The whole process is over in 15 mins and I hurry to get back dressed and head to work. I get to work around 1 pm and I get a co-worker to get me lunch. I finish out the day and head home. I am tired & I know I need to go to bed early so I can get up early so I make a bowl of cereal, take some sleep meds and go to bed.