Another Day, Another IV (really!?!)

As many of you know, I am a bit of a needle phobe. Okay...so perhaps that is a slight understatement. Given that I have gone through childbirth, have had tons of major dental work, and just had major surgery, you would think that I would start to get less anxious about IVs, blood draws, shots, etc. But it seems that I still get uncomfortable whenever any sort of needle is involved.

And to my dismay, two out of three of my appointments today involved needles. My first appointment of the day was my three-week follow up with my plastic surgeon. During my surgery, my surgeon placed a tissue expander under the pectoral muscle beneath each breast. If you are thinking ouch, your instincts are right on.  The purpose of the expanders is to gradually expand the tissue in preparation for the reconstructive surgery down the road. So every couple weeks, saline solution is injected into the expanders. Since today was the first time I was actually awake for them to inject fluid into the expanders (they added 120 ccs to each breast during my surgery), I was pretty nervous to have it done. But I can honestly say...it was a piece of cake. They pumped in 60 ccs of fluid in each breast, and I didn't feel anything except a little bit of pressure.

My second appointment of the day was needle-free. Yay! This was the appt. with my oncologist. We talked about the different types of chemotherapy drugs I will be getting as well as each of their lovely side effects. Timing wise, it's looking like my port will be placed late next week and then chemo will most likely start on Friday, May 18. My chemo treatments will be given over a period of about 20 weeks. My first round will be given every two weeks for 8 weeks and then the second will be given every week for 12 weeks.

My last appointment of the day was the MUGA heart test, which checks to make sure your heart is good and ready for chemo. I naively thought this would be a simple ultrasound of my heart. But unfortunately, like all of those other scans I've had since my diagnosis (CT/bone/MRI), I had to get yet another IV. Even though it made me a little squeamish, I was pretty fascinated by what they do for this test. They basically draw your blood, add radioactive markers to the blood and then they hook you up to a EKG machine, give you back your radioactive blood and take pictures of how your heart is pumping your blood. George, the tech who administered the test, made me feel much more comfortable by explaining things as he went. His sense of humor and the palm tree lights I got look at on the ceiling didn't hurt either:)

Okay...now that I have probably totally grossed many of you out, I thought I would end this post with some of the words from a couple of cards I received that I got a total kick out of.

So the first one was from my friend, Laura. And it said "Everything happens for a reason. Usually it's because life sucks." Totally made me laugh. Thanks Laura!

And the other I just received today from my friend, Caitlin. It has a picture of a yummy looking chocolate chip cookie on it and gives a four-part definition to the words Tough Cookie. 1. Someone with just the right mix of sweetness and strength. 2. One who doesn't crumble under pressure. 3. A fighter who's too busy kicking butt to sit down and cry, but knows it's okay to do both. 4. A person who doesn't always ask for support, but has lots of friends who do anything to help. This one made me smile. Thanks Caitlin!

Signing off for now. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!