2002-07-23

12:08 a.m.

Today I went to the cancer center to get my daily neupogen shot. It�s my new �thing�. The friendly front desk nurse (also the same nurse who stuck me in such a wrong way with a needle that I lost my shoe) told me to wait back in the �treatment area�. I was already getting a slight nauseous feeling from just being in the building. When I walked back and saw the Monday afternoon chemo crowd I nearly puked on the spot.

The Monday chemo crowd are the people who wouldn�t know the difference if it was Monday or judgment day. Many people who try to fool themselves into �living with cancer�, such as myself, get their chemo on a Thursday or Friday so they can recover in time to get back to the grindstone on Monday. The Monday chemo crowd is wrinkled and really really old. They don�t have bosses to answer to or people to impress. I wonder if they are even in pain at all. Or if they have experienced so much pain they just lie around and let people poke them whenever and wherever. I started to feel bad that I am such a verbal and rowdy patient.

I tried to busy myself with selecting a magazine from the skimpy wall rack but the �treatment room� has only one well dated issue of �Us� magazine and I already read about Angelina Jolie�s newly adopted baby. I couldn�t hack it. The room made me want to vomit. I have no idea how I will ever set foot in there for treatment again.

I blazed past the front desk lady, the one that told me to wait in the �treatment area� and told her that I could not possible wait back there because I was going to barf for sure.

I sat out in the real waiting room with a Conde Nast Traveler magazine and brushed up on where not to go in these post 9-11 travel times. Turkey isn�t nearly as dangerous as I thought. I made a note. The waiting room in all of it's forest green and mauve glory offered some relief from subconscious barf reflex. This reflex has gotten more sensitive with every treatment. I noticed when I went in for a blow draw last week that as soon as K and I pulled up into the cancer center parking lot I felt nauseous. Today was an even stronger feeling. A feeling that chunks were going to fly for sure and location had nearly everything to do with it. And no matter how un-PC it was, the shriveled Monday chemo crowd that made it worse.

I decided today after an unprecedented seven manic and then depressive mood swings that I am going to need a new plan of action for the second half of my chemotherapy in order to make it through. Maybe a new location. Maybe I can have the chemo come to me. Anywhere but the wretched �treatment room�.

Normal people wouldn�t believe the indignity of the �treatment room� but it is very true. As if having a life threatening illness with a ultra-toxic treatment plan wasn�t bad enough, patients are forced to sit in the same room as other patients getting treatment. There is a line of tacky taupe pleather reclining chairs near some windows decorated by donated cancer art people. Each of the chairs has one of those super tall metal menacing IV poles. When you go in for your appointment you pick a chair along the wall and for the most part hope that no one overly talkative sits next to you.

Another plan of action after I am done with treatment will be to change the treatment rooms for all cancer patients to an area comparable to the Century Plaza Hotel I was staying in a year ago at around this time. Even the Monday chemo crowd, whether they would know the difference between the Century Plaza and the Greenville Old Folks Home, would get to take advantage of the new treatment center.

These are the plans that will carry me through the second half of treatment or maybe only through my next �episode�.

previous - next

powered by SignMyGuestbook.com