I did not sleep well last night. My left lower arm has been bothering me since Tuesday (Day 9). This is left over from when the IV was put in on Day 1 of this cycle. Anyway, it is very tender and the pain was keeping me awake last night. By morning, I could see that there is redness and swelling spreading. The arm is very warm to touch. So I decided that I would be making a call to my family physician and try to get an appointment for today. But first.....I had to wait for a phone call from the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC). This phone interview has been scheduled since Tuesday and I had to be available between 9 a.m. and 12 Noon.
I had a lovely little visit with the nurse that called from the CCAC. She was calling to get my background medical information. The CCAC will be helping me to keep my pic line (which goes in tomorrow) clean and maintained. I believe that the pic line will be cleaned weekly and I will have to go to their clinic once a week. The unfortunate part is that the call came later in the morning. I had to delay calling my family doctor to make the appointment until after my CCAC call.
Needless to say, my doctor's appointment was in the middle of the afternoon and I was already tired from not sleeping last night. I'm also supposed to avoid the sunlight. So to go out and travel around the city to get to a doctor's appointment and then to the pharmacy and back home in the hot part of the day was a challenge. I managed to do it but was very, very tired by the time I got back home. This compounded the nauseous feelings that I was experiencing.
My family doctor is treating my arm as an infection so I'm on antibiotics. I'm also supposed to take tylenol as an anti-inflammatory. He also prescribed Nystatin for thrush when it appears. I remember the Nystatin from 5 years ago. I hated taking that stuff but it will heal the thrush whenever it decides to make an appearance.
After getting home from the errands, I wanted to lay down and have a nap to recharge myself. I was really dragging. I had just fallen asleep when the phone rang. Oh yes....CCAC called me while I was at the doctor's office and so I had called them back when I got home. I was expecting them to call. So up I got and ran for the phone. It was a sales call. Grrrrrrrrr.!!! I went and laid down again and then my cell phone rang. Another sales call! Grrrrrrrr!!!! I decided I may as well get up and bring in the laundry off the line. I took the phone outside with me as I was still awaiting the CCAC call. Just as I opened the door and was about to carry the laundry inside, my husband opened the door and was coming through the doorway! What a scare!!!!!
So tonight, I'm very tired, somewhat grumpy and feeling sorry for myself. Life does not seem fair! It sucks that here I am fighting this terrible disease again. Tomorrow, I will be at the hospital again to have my pic line put in. Let's hope there is no further infection. Let's hope something will finally go smoothly for us.
I believe it is important to acknowledge, embrace and then let go of the emotions that plague me. Today the emotions are sadness, anger and frustration. I recognize that these are not good to hang on to, but they are a necessary part of acknowledging the reality of being sick with cancer again. So I've acknowledged them, embraced them this evening and will now attempt to let them go so that tomorrow is a new day.
I close now as I'm very tired and ready to crash. I'm a little anxious about the pic line procedure tomorrow morning. At least I don't have to fast before the procedure.
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