Surprise! It's Me, Again!

Didn't mean to leave ya dangling like that. The end of last week turned out a little rougher than expected. Everything was fine and dandy (relatively) until about Thursday afternoon. I started feeling a little nauseous and was losing my appetite (i.e., I had a rumbly in my tumbly that went all gibbity gibbity - Medical Terms). Up till that point I been eating 3 squares a day and cleaning the plates. And I, of course, asked for no chemical assistance for several reasons 1.) PRIDE, I didn't want to mess with my stoic and strong image so carefully cultivated 2.) CHEMICAL OVERLOAD, I didn't want to add another batch of drugs to my already drug-addled system. 3.) PRICE, for some reason I convinced myself it would actually make a dimes worth of difference to my Ultimate Bill if I refused certain medications.
By Friday morning it was bad enough that I begged for anything short of euthanasia to settle things down. I ended up getting three injections during the day, one that made me sleep(ier), two that were supposed to be drowse-free. It's tough to tell which,if any had any affect since I was pretty much groggy for the rest of my incarceration.
I was due to be cut loose on Friday, but they didn't get around to removing my direct-deposit catheter until about 4pm. After removal, they say they wanna keep ya an extra four hours to make sure everything went OK. It wasn't until 10pm that I was officially notified I could get up, move around the cabin, and go to the bathroom all by myself. So I stayed the night.

Side note: I learned much about Bedpan Etiquette while on the inside. The staff all realize how embarrassing and undignified the whole process is, but you only make it worse if you try to read a magazine while on the Mobil-Pot.

Saturday morning as I packed my belongs and prepared for the getaway, I was still feelin' illin', so I drank one of them Breakfast-In-A-Can thingies and promptly turned over my innards and puked through my mouth, my nose and every other facial orifice. I couldn't keep conscious for more than 15 minutes at a time on the way back to B/CS (thanks, Gail)and then plopped into my own Bed Sweet Bed and kept the snoozing marathon going until noon Sunday.

They told me the side effects from Direct Chemo would be less, so here's my personal final tally: nauseousness, diminished appetite, fatigue, drowsiness, mouth sores. Glad I didn't get the full strength.
I had been planning to return to the airwaves today (Monday) but yesterday evening I made a judgement call to wait till Tuesday , the 18th.

I gotta go back for Round Two of Chemo in about three weeks.

Thanks again for your emails, texts, postings, phone calls, thoughts and prayers.
Please forgive me if I don't respond immediately, I will try to acknowledge every one, and every one is important to me.

Roy