I’m back at the hospital, in the same room I had for my first B cycle, and I’ve gotten everything unpacked and the room set up as much as I can while I’m waiting to have my new PICC line put in. From what Kat, one of the charge nurses, told me earlier, I may have it put in my left arm again, but I guess I’ll know more once the tech gives my arm an ultrasound. I’ve also been told that my spinal tap/chemo treatment will be sometime this afternoon. If this interferes with my lunch in any way I’m going to be pissed. I’m SO hungry. At least I’ve been given a heads-up though, so I’m reducing my liquid intake accordingly. Oh, here’s another thing: When I called Food & Nutrition to place my lunch order I was told that the kitchen hadn’t yet received my dietary orders. (*SOB*) I sure hope I can get something to eat before I’m dragged downstairs for medieval torture!

Whew. The kitchen must have gotten my dietary orders because lunch just arrived. Time to snarf!😄

My PICC line was just installed, once again in the left arm. This time the tech located a vein right on top of my bicep, unlike the last two locations which were more on the underside of the arm. It isn’t painful but the skin around the catheter is beginning to bruise a bit and there’s some swelling. My nurse didn’t like the look of that and wants to keep an eye on it.

I was finally dragged downstairs at around 3:00pm for both a chest x-ray (to check the placement of the PICC catheter) and the medieval torture, aka the spinal tap/chemo. I had to wait quite a while for the spinal tap because there were several patients ahead of me, so I didn’t get back to my room until 4:40. Thankfully the spinal tap wasn’t too uncomfortable but it still gives me the willies knowing that someone’s inserting needles and injecting chemicals into my spinal column. I ended up lying flat in my bed until 7:00, when I couldn’t stand it any more and finally got up to go to the loo. The dinner trays had long since been delivered so my nurse hung onto mine until a few minutes before I was due to get up, then warmed the plate up for me. ❤️ The nurses here are all awesome.

So it looks like I get to start my infusion of Rituxin tonight, the pre-chemo drug that can cause severe allergic reactions and did on the first occasion I received it. We’ll see how it goes. I had no reaction the last two times I had it but my night nurse is going to start me out on a higher-concentration drip this time so there’s no telling what will happen. We’ll see how the night progresses!