Things I’m grateful for:

1. My quiet, gentle morning nurse “mice”, Rosario and Quynh (pronounced Quinn). Wonderful, sweet, they try very hard to disturb me as little as possible during nightly labs and vitals.

2. Dr. Bamboh. From Tanzania, her voice is like rich honeyed velvet. Her smile will light up a room and she has a passion for wonderfully patterned hijabs. I adore her.

3. My family, for all coming to the hospital for the official chemo hair “shearing”. I knew it was only a matter of time but I had no idea it would happen within the first chemo cycle.

Ugh, I haven’t posted in days. I’m slowly climbing out of the abyss I had fallen into. My blood cell counts are going up rapidly, my mouth sores are nearly gone save for one stubborn one on the left side of my tongue, and my appetite’s slowly coming back. I have to be very careful now to not overdo it food-wise and stick with ordering meals that are easy for me to chew. Which basically means that the food consistency has to be about the softness of toddler food.🙄

I’ve been assigned to YET ANOTHER doctor but I like this guy. He’s Dr. Berkowitz and he’s this little gruff fireplug of a man who takes his job and his patients’ welfare very seriously, due to his specialty in infectious diseases. He was the guy who speculated that the PICC line in my right arm might be a source of infection because I’ve been experiencing a lot of pain in my right arm as well as swelling that started in the armpit area and has since spread to the entire arm. There’s been some back-and-forth between Santiago and Berkowitz over whether or not to remove it and install another one. Santiago wants to try to carry through the next couple of days with the line still in place. Berkowitz wants it gone, NOW, but understands the futility of installing a second PICC in my left arm since they’re both of the opinion that I’ll be going home in the next couple of days. Huh. I just thought of this. I just watched Inside Out again last night because, well, boredom, but I also really enjoy the film. Dr. Berkowitz reminds me very strongly of squat, hot-tempered Anger! Heeheeheehee… I’m obviously not going to tell him this but it may be hard to keep a straight face the next time he checks in on me.🤣

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. I did a whole lot of sit, do nothing and wait for meds, IV changes, meal orders for the kitchen, OMG what is it now. I do NOT like to miss the meal orders because if I do, the kitchen will send up something appalling. The good thing is that I was able to finally escape the confines of my room and go for a walk. I was also able to eat a nice-ish dinner that consisted of a bit of fish and carrots. It doesn’t sound like much but it made my tummy happy and that’s a tall order these days!

Right. So just before dinner, both Dr. Santiago and Dr. Berkowitz came trooping into my room saying that if they can get all the other doctors who have seen me to agree to my release, I can actually go home tomorrow! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!🎉🎉🎈🥳