I ran over to the office to get caught up on bill paying.  Josh is busy with some small jobs, and Harry was talking to our consulting surgeon, Dr. Peter Stevens, when I got there.  Dr. Stevens is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon in Salt Lake City.  He has been to visit us at 3D Medical, and Chae and I visited him when we were in SLC for the NCAA National Gymnastics Championships.  He is such a nice guy and a great surgeon.  He and Harry can churn out a new idea just about every day!

When I talked to Kelly, the scheduling nurse, she said to come at 8 AM and go to the 3^rd floor lab for blood work.  I told her that I had problems with having no useful veins, and I asked if the lab would be able to get blood using my chemo port.  She said to just come to the chemo suite and they would draw the blood and send it to the lab – I thought it was really nice that she was willing to be so accommodating!  She said that Mary would be my nurse.   I don’t know Mary yet, but I’m sure she is nice.   Kelly said the blood work analysis would take about an hour, and we would get the chemo started around 9 AM.  She did mention that there would be some benadryl involved, which means that I will be a total zombie and Chae will probably have to employ the fireman’s carry to get me to the car – maybe I will be able to talk someone into taking a photo of this!  It should be interesting. 

No wait – hold the phone!  Mary, the chemo nurse, just called and rescheduled me for noon.  Mary sounds really nice!  She said we should be finished by 3:00 or 3:30.  She asked about prior chemo, and I told her about chemo for breast cancer in 1989.  She asked about the drugs used and commented that 1989 was “way back” when the really good anti-nausea drugs were not available yet.  I told her that I never had any problems with nausea, that I usually went for chemotherapy, then went to lunch and shopping.  She said, “Well, you won’t get sick this time either.”  Very matter of fact – not trying to make me feel better – more like a professional opinion!

Also, one more thought about health insurance!  Dr. Barnes and I discussed anti-nausea medications (just in case…) when we talked the other day.  He said there were several things to use.  Zofran is probably the best, but it is VERY expensive.  He said that many people who have good drug coverage still end up paying co-pays of several hundred dollars for each chemo treatment’s worth of the drug.  A generic version was approved a few months ago.  I called our drug coverage company and learned that our co-pay for each chemo treatment will be $5.  Yep, just five bucks.  Wow!

I have my bag packed for tomorrow:  My iPod (with “Mom’s First Chemo Mix” done by Jane), my medicine bag (hand made by Robyn Lovitt and sent to me by CeCe Whitewolf, both from Oregon), my hope medal (sent by Sue Sumpter, also from Oregon), my vial of holy water from Lourdes (sent by Donna O’Brien, from New York), my purple shawl/blanket, my journal/diary (sent by Cathy Hartmann, high school friend and fellow cancer survivor), worry beads (brought back from Greece from my friend Ellen Zahariadis), and other things (chapstick, etc.).  I also found my “worry people” pin that I wore when I had chemotherapy in 1989 – you might remember those little tiny stick people that were dressed in multi-colored fabrics?  Anyway, I have a pin with my seven little worry people that is now pinned to my bag.  I’m going to try to let them do most of my worrying (smile…).