Wednesday, March 17, 2010

ICE Round 2, Day 2

I awoke feeling pretty groggy from a quite interrupted sleep and the effects of the chemo starting to kick in. But once I ate breakfast and got myself moving and showered things were better. Then it was a parade of visitors which was great to keep me distracted from my woozy weakness.

My sister is back from California and my brother is home on spring break so they came by to spend much of the afternoon. My boss stopped by bringing some more laughs. My Dad came along to spend time with me. Our dear friend Leah, who's always bursting with sunshine - even more so now with the glow of pregnancy - came by with a doctored up card featuring Sammy's mug and shamrock sugar cookies. Of course, my faithful husband has been here every evening after work. And, I even had a visit by a real-life clown who provided some fantastic entertainment to my brother, sister and me.

Our good friend Keith, whom Craig works with at the summer enrichment camp he teaches at and who's son I used to babysit for, finished up a gig at The Bushnell entertaining before a kid's show and decided to come over and give me a little show to cheer me up. He was dressed up in all his "Tabasco Pepper" character garb and we just had a blast.

He taught me a few magic tricks. He "tested my reflexes" and had me balancing peacock feathers on my hand and juggling kerchiefs with him. We juggled balls together. He told jokes and had my siblings and I in stitches.

I guess the adage that "laughter is the best medicine" is true. Just before Keith walked in I had called for the nurse for some anti-nausea meds as I started to feel pretty uneasy. Well the drugs never came, and I never needed them after Keith was through. I felt a million times better.

My nurse Jennifer and I talked about the fantastical idea of staging a St. Patrick's Day parade tomorrow around the floor and having all of the patients march banging bed pans and blowing on tubing and such for some entertainment. Then she drew me a very impressive clover on my white board. It's nice to have nurses with a sense of humor.

Craig and I ordered in pizza as the greasy grilled cheese that came on my dinner tray wasn't cutting it. Pizza was delicious for sure. Then a Reiki volunteer came to my room and I was treated with a nice session which got me all relaxed before bed. It was so bizarre because as soon as she saw my face she said: "Are you Karin, the Karin that writes the blog?" Turns out that her nephew dates someone that I went to middle school with who sent her my blog a while back and she was all caught up on my life. My world seems to be shrinking more and more every day when I realize all of the connections that we have to each other. It's a comforting feeling to constantly be reassured how amazing the interconnectedness of the human race is. You only have to peel back a few layers in a person to find some commonality and mutual relationships.

After the Reiki session I crashed real hard right after Craig left last night - all that stimulation got to me I guess. I fell asleep without the aid of any meds and never even took any anti-nausea meds before bed. I slept through all the med switchovers during the night and slept solid until 6am. Still woke up very lethargic, but one more day down. And that's huge. I can't wait to get out into this beautiful weather - high 60s and sunny - I'm just so glad that it's supposed to last all weekend so that I can soak a bit of it in too.

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