It Wasn't All Bad

Last month, I wrote about my medical challenges, and the long road I have traveled because of them. To be fair, it wasn't all bad. Sure, I would rather have not gone through all of that, but I also need to give a shout out to everyone who brightened those dark days for me.

My family and friends stepped up day after day for me. I kept cancer quieter the second time around, only sharing the news with a core group of people. Word of mouth helped it travel some. Everyone is busy though, and all of my friends had stepped up so much the first time, I didn't want to ask for that support again. My family was a huge support to me. My parents took care of my horses. My sister drove me to medical appointments when needed, had tons of cards for me, decorated my hospital rooms, and more. Family, friends and co-workers all visited me on various hospital stays.

The girls that I ride with came and had "girls night" in my hospital room at UConn. We laughed so hard the nurses were wondering what was going on in our room.

During one of my hospital stays at UConn, one of my nurses came in to administer my medications. At that point, I was still getting lovenox shots (blood thinner) twice a day. I told the nurse that I gave my own shots, and she said, "Oh good, I hate giving shots."

Another time at UConn, a nurse woke me up in the middle of the night (as is usual - they check your blood pressure every four hours) and then was freaking out because my blood pressure was ridiculously - or perhaps I should say dangerously - low. She asked if my blood pressure always went that low at night, and I replied, I don't know, I usually don't check my blood pressure at 1 AM. She laughed a little then and said point taken, and then we dealt with the issue at hand.

My friend JoAnn was a nurse at UConn Health until she retired earlier this year. Even though the campus in Farmington is huge and she is in a different building, she came and visited me during each of my hospital stays. When I was scheduled for the needle biopsy in April 2015 I was a wreck. I arrived at the hospital and was so upset, I knew. I rounded a corner in radiology and there she was. She gave me a big hug, and told me everything would be okay while I sobbed into her shoulder. She had seen my name on the list that morning, and knew I would need a friend, so scheduled her break in her unit to come up the hill to a different building and be there for me.

Different doctors are always on call for inpatients. During one of my UConn stays, Dr. A - my oncologist from the original Hodgkin diagnosis - was on call and showed up in my hospital room. We started talking, and she gave me a hug, and told me I would be fine.

When I went to Yale to start harvesting my stem cells, the first day is spent getting tests, and meeting the doctors. I reported to the hospital early the next morning to begin the long procedure. A nurse came into the waiting room and called two names, mine and someone else's. We both got up and moved towards her, and the guy, Wayne, looked at me and said, "Can't someone get this girl to stop following me around?" And then he laughed. Apparently, and unknown to me, we had been on the same circuit the day before too. Wayne and I ended up sitting next to each other for the 5-hour days of stem cell harvest (you only have about 5 feet in between the chairs). He, his wife Toni, and their son Michael and I all talked some. Then we had our transplants within two days of each other. Wayne and I still text and check in with each other.

On one of our stem cell harvest days, an artist came through and gave each of us a flip book, and told us to pick a watercolor we wanted painted for us. Wayne was in the seat closer to the door, and went first. He tried to talk to the artist, but the man quickly brushed him off - this was serious business. I smirked a little, picked my painting, and waited my turn. I picked a scene with a tree, since I love trees - and few of the choices in the book had a tree in them. When he handed me my painting, the artist had taken the tree out. Once the artist was out of earshot, Wayne said, "Nice tree." I still laugh about that, but did keep the painting.

My nurse on the day of my stem cell transplant was named Sunshine. Really, that's her name. And she was Sunshine. Also a Hodgkin lymphoma survivor, I connected with her more closely than with other nurses because of our common history, and having her by my side on that terrible day made things a little easier.

While I was undergoing BEAM chemotherapy, my friend Rineicha came and picked me up at Yale's hotel. We went to East Rock in New Haven - it has an incredible view of the city, and I recommend visiting if you're ever down there. We went to the beach, and had lunch with our friend Wanda.

Ray, the APRN for inpatients at Yale, really went to bat for me to get me out of the hospital. My room was near the door, and he walked by many times a day, so stopped in to check on me more than was usual. He knew I wanted to go home, and we talked about it the morning of my 10th day in the hospital (a Friday), but said that Dr. S would probably leave me in one more day because my counts weren't good. When the team came in, Ray recommended the recheck, and helped persuade Dr. S to let me go, as long as they could give me more platelets and have me back in on Monday for a check in. Ray's shift was supposed to be over at 6:30 PM - but pharmacy had messed up my order. He stayed until around 8:30 PM that night to make sure I got to go home, even taking my picc line out before I left (again, I insisted).

I never understood why people complained about their ports. During my first chemotherapy, the port was never an issue until the last treatment. They flipped me upside down, and it worked. This time, my port was terrible. I understood the complaints. Every time I needed my port accessed, there was some issue. It got so bad that they sent me back to the main hospital at UConn to have it x-rayed. A nurse was working on me in radiology, trying to access the port, and said, "I think it's flipped upside down," in a concerned tone. At that point Dr. S (not from Yale - the UConn Dr. S who had done my biopsy and inserted both picc lines) walked in and said "Whose patient is this?" The nurse replied that I was a patient of Dr. Z - and told him what she thought about my port. He said, "No, this is my patient," took over, and sent me back down the hill for chemotherapy when all was said and done.

And then there's Andrea, the APRN at UConn Health. She's been on my medical team since 2008. She is a straight shooter, and calls it like it is. She's fielded phone calls, emails and in person visits from me when I'm at my worst. I'm grateful she's on my team.

I know I'm forgetting people and memories. The point is there were a million little things that made the whole process a little less scary. Thank you to all of my family, friends, medical team members, and strangers who made each day a little brighter.

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