Thanksgiving and other events since last posting

Today was day 8 of the current cycle, which started on Monday, November 24, and which was a much longer session than I had expected.  I was so tired when I finally got home that I didn't feel like writing a post for the blog and I forgot about doing it on Tuesday and by then I had forgotten what I might have said in a post.  So I have waited until today to try to bring it up to date.  But first this is how today's visit went:  The schedule called for me to be there at 10:30 and I did not have to do much waiting after I registered.  Craig collected me from the waiting hallway and took me in for vitals and then into the Infusion Room for a seat in chair #2 where my nurse, the same one from last Monday and whose name I do not know, told me she had already sent in the order for the Velcade and it should be up soon.  I then asked her about getting a shot for shingles because of the frequent mentions on television and a hideous segment on the TV News in the last day or so of a man's back caused by shingles.  We then talked about the fall that I had taken in our family room Friday evening, which I had told Craig about when he asked about my weekend. The nurse later told me that she had asked Amanda about a shingles shot and was told that I cannot have one because the vaccine uses a live virus and my immune system is too weak to tolerate the vaccine with a live virus.  Even though my visit to the clinic went along as rapidly as I expected I still didn't get home until almost 1:00 because I stopped at our bank to replenish our cash supply.

For the clinic visit on the 24th I was instructed to come at 9:30 for the blood draw after which I was taken to an exam room for a visit with Amanda, the PA who has been working the BMT clinic since returning from maternity leave.  The PAs have begun to insist that for privacy they be provided an exam room for their consultations with patients. I told Amanda about the cautionary label on the latest refill of the Medyl-prednisolone advising that it should be taken with food and to avoid grapefruit and that I had been told by one of the Pharmacists several months ago that he had looked at my prescribed medications and none of them are affected by grapefruit.  This had been a relief to me because I had been getting up early to take a "cocktail" of pills that I had been told to take at least 2 hours before eating grapefruit.  Amanda left to talk to Pharmacy about this label and did not return for quite some time and when she returned she said the long time was due to a crisis that had to be resolved and then said that the grapefruit would affect the Velcade, but inasmuch as I have not had a reaction after my shots she could see no reason for me to stop eating grapefruit on days when I will have an infusion. This was one of several delays that added to a long day at the clinic.

The week passed smoothly until Thanksgiving day, which we spent with Nancy and part of her family, when they asked us to keep their two golden retrievers over night Friday while the entire family went to Idaho Falls to see Mike's father and other family members.  The dogs are generally well behaved and we like them and they seem to really like me because they are always under my feet or as close as they can get, which brings us to the fall mentioned above.  Our friend, Johanna, had come for cocktails, dinner, and to spend the night and when I started to walk from the table to replenish the drinks the dogs got between my legs and I fell flat on my back.  I couldn't get up and spent a few minutes resting and recovering, but felt no ill effects until several hours later when I got up from the couch where we had been watching a movie and found I had severe pains in my left knee, in my left hand and in my right shoulder and neck.  I guessed that in my struggle to get up from the fall I had banged some furniture or the floor harder than I realized.  The pain was so intense that I had a hard time sleeping and could only do so on my back.  The next morning the inside of my left knee was swollen as was my left hand.  I spent most of Saturday with ice packs on my knee, which reduced the swelling and eased the pain so that sleeping became easier.  When Mike came to pick up the dogs I jokingly told him I was going to sue him.  I have walked with a cane since but I see improvement every day and wilol have to tell Mike I am not going to sue him after all.