Another surprisingly slow Monday today

Traffic was light and even though I was slow leaving home I got to the BMT clinic a few minutes before my appointment at 10:00, but a new, to me, registration lady checked me in and took some time in finding me in the computer.  I waited in the hallway waiting area for only a few minutes when Meghan (Meg) tapped on the shoulder and ushered me in for vitals and then I had my choice of chairs 1 or 4 in the Infusion Room and selected 4 because number 1 is beside the entry door.  Meg was tending a patient in chair 5 who was getting some sort of infusion, which required frequent visits for her, so the emplacement of a line in my port took quite some time and when it was placed she got no blood return.  This has been a frequent occurrence for the last several cycles, but this one was the most difficult to overcome.  She flushed it with all the saline that she had brought and asked me to turn my head to the left and cough, which resulted in a spotty pink flow that was not adequate.  She then used 6 more saline syringes with no better result and decided that there was some sort of blood clot in the port or in the connector used to connect the line to the syringes.  She got more syringes and a new connector with no better results so decided that she would have to use a solution that would dissolve blood clots and had to wait for it to be obtained from the locked storage room by Kiristen.Then 2 vials of blood were drawn and another wait ensued for results on the blood from the lab before the Velcade could be infused.  As I backed out of my parking space in the garage I noticed that it was 1:20 and I needed to stop at the Post Office and Reams for some needed groceries before going on home.

Meg asked about my health and any recent problems so I felt obligated to tell her about the generally run-down feeling I had all last week and about the activities that might have been responsible.  There was the excessive walking in the Denver airport and there was a misguided attempt last Tuesday night to go to a play at Pioneer Memorial Theatre.  We had received tickets for a play called Control House in our packet of season tickets mailed to us last July, which according to the printed tickets would be performed at 7:30 PM, June 17, 2014.  Roger had invited us to come at 5 for drinks and a light meal and afterwards we took him up to the theater, but when we got there we found the streets to the parking lots fenced off and decided to park in one of stadium parking lots and walk.  A light rain had started and Roger and Emma started off while I was finding and unfurling my umbrella.  The rain was quite steady by then and when I caught up to them in front of the theater they told me it was dark and locked so I went around to the side entrance and pounded on the door to no avail.  So I told them to wait in the rain while I went back for the car and then we took Roger home where he insisted that we come in to dry off, which we were happy to do.  Emma's coat was soaked and I hardly needed drying out, but I was happy to accept some of his aged Glen Livet, which I like neat and had a couple of shots as we commiserated with each other about the aborted evening.  What does this have to do with my general health? Well, I had told Meg that starting around noon on Wednesday I had developed an almost uncontrollable need to go to the bathroom every half hour and this lasted until about the time we went to bed.  She cautioned me that alcohol can act as a diuretic and I may have had enough to account for the frequent visits to the bathroom.  I asked her if the nourishment last Sunday may have been a contributing factor, because except for one plate full of large chilled shrimps, crab claws and smoked salmon with a single muffin was I all I had to eat that day until we got home after 9:00 that night and then only had some very tasty watermelon we had left in the refrigerator.  This didn't ring any bells with Meg so the general  malaise of last week remains unexplained.  She did tell me that if the frequent need to urinate returned I should see a Urologist.

Emma didn't start feeling poorly until last Saturday and hadn't recovered until this morning.  We both were somewhat indisposed on Sunday and only ate light breakfasts, had no lunch, and in the evening I prepared omelettes that I had intended to make for breakfast to include Laura, but she had called to cancel.  We only had one English muffin left and I didn't cook any meat to go with the eggs.  So we ate sparingly and this may have helped speed Emma's recovery.