"Vacation" over back to the BMT clinic today

Today is day-one of the new 4-week cycle of visits each Monday to the BMT clinic for Velcade infusions, blood work today and on day-15, visit with a PA today, and friendly chatter with the nurses and nurses' aides.  I actually enjoy going to the clinic and almost miss it during the 20 days that I have off between visits.  But I and/or we did some interesting things during this "vacation", which I will describe after the details of today's visit.

There was a message on our voice-mail when we returned from our trip to Cedar City to attend the Shakespeare Festival to remind me of my appointment at the clinic at 10:00 this morning.  The traffic was light and I arrived at the registration desk right at 10:00 and found the waiting area in the outside hall almost empty  I was taken into the Infusion Room after I was weighted and found all but one of the chairs empty and chose number 4 from which I can see the clock because I had forgotten to take my cell phone or pocket watch.  Laurie was my nurse and she placed the line in my port and drew 2 vials of blood by 10:30 and I thought I was going to be finished so early that I would be going home for lunch.  But then events slowed to a crawl with wait after wait.  I was taken to one of the exam rooms by Bethany who told me that Andrea does not like to interview patients in one of the chairs with only a curtain for privacy.  When I saw Andrea, whom I had never seen before, she noticed on the lab report of my blood work for that day that the MCV in the Hematology field was quite high and when she scanned back through many records she saw that it had been high for a long time so she walked me back to the Infusion Room and asked Laurie to determine whether there was enough blood remaining to do analysis for B12 and foliates (I am not sure about this, but there was something other than B12).  Turned out that Laurie had to draw another vial of blood for the lab and its result would not be available for 2 or 3 days.  Janet came taking orders for sandwiches while I was out of the room, but Bethany phoned her and ordered a ham sandwich for me.  By the time it came I was hungry so ate half of it while waiting for the Velcade and brought the other half home.  I didn't leave the clinic until about 1:25 and found that Emma and Karen had returned from their luncheon date before I got home.

Karen had come Sunday afternoon for a 2-week visit and we had hurried back from Cedar City where we had gone for the Shakespeare Festival to meet her flight. Roger had picked us up Thursday morning and exceeded the speed limit most of the way in order to get there in time for the matinee performance of Twelfth Night, which was quite good.  He also wanted to get home Sunday because he expected a granddaughter to come that day for a visit.  We checked into the Abbey Inn and after a relaxing "happy hour" had dinner at the next door IHOP before going back to the theater for the evening performance of Measure for Measure, the second of four Shakespeare plays scheduled for the Summer season all of which we saw plus Sense and Sensibility  and  Into the Woods.  Almost tiring to attend so many plays in just three days.  I became so tired that I was having trouble walking, partly because Roger was finding shade to park under, and partly because of the persistent peripheral neuropathy in my feet.  So when we went into Bulloch's Drug Store Saturday morning searching for dark glasses for Emma I found and bought a nice looking wooden cane that I found lying beneath some shelves that contained adjustable aluminum canes. Roger liked mine so much he bought the only remaining one, also lying on the bottom of that case.  I now have a cane that I can forget as each one rests against an outside door.

The luncheon that Emma and Karen attended had been scheduled by one of the ladies that Emma has been seeing at her aquasize classes and then at Einsteins for coffee afterwords. Several of the ladies know Karen from previous visits and were anxious to see her.  Emma had wanted Nancy to join them, but Nancy was taking care of Morgan while Dani (mother of Morgan) was unpacking boxes in their new home, which they just moved into last Saturday.