Live from the Chemo Barn!

That's right! I'm wireless and ready for drugs.

And I brought my camera with me in order to bring a little chemo-barn atmosphere to you.

Here is a shot of the nicest corner in the barn. The scene looks cosy because I took it from my seat looking out of the barn, and you can't see the rows of recliners filling the space. I am also facing the nurse's desk, and it's much more pleasant to see them bustling about than it is to see my fellow cancer sojourners hooked up to their pumps.


Speaking of which, here's the pump. The face of it counts down the time left on the drip. On my first chemo day, I counted along the last 10 seconds of the last dripping bag. The time ran out. The box starting beeping. The nurse came along in response to the beeping. And told me it'd take another 10 minutes because the bag wasn't empty. Really anti-climactic. . .











But I'm getting ahead of myself. I arrived at 8:30, they accessed my port using this 1 inch needle.

Yes, this goes through my skin. But I have a cream now that I apply an hour before going in and by the time I get there, I don't feel a thing.


They drew blood out and sent it to the lab to make various counts of various levels and then we met with Dr. Markus a.k.a. Dr. Sciene a.k.a. Maurice. The burning question, of course, regarded his name. I told him that the story left off last time and that my public was clamoring for the rest.

There kind of wasn't any "rest." The family lived a short while in Paris and then moved to the Bronx. He doesn't know much about this grandfather--or he might be a great-grandfather--for whom he is named. But he did explain that it's a Jewish thing to name sons after dead relatives.

His brother's name: Elliot. Which I take to be in the same school of names as Maurice.

Markus did say that his parents come to visit tomorrow, and that he'd get all the details on the family history and family name for me. What a good sport!





Before taking this photo, he said, "I'm glad I did my hair today." I said, "So am I."

Stay tuned for more posts from the Chemo Barn. I'm here until at least 2 PM Mountain time!