My vitals are always taken prior to bloodwork. I don’t know what was up with the blood pressure cuff, but it had a mind of its own and wanted to squeeze the life out of me. The medical assistant pulled out another one, but it did the same thing. She resorted to taking my blood pressure manually.

Typically, the nurses have difficulty drawing blood from my port. I have to turn to the left and/or lie back (damn, there’s that lay vs lie issue again!), and/or put my right arm up over my head. None of those tricks worked today. They said the port had some buildup, which is common after a while. They asked the doctor for permission to give me a medication through the port that would dissolve the buildup.

A platelet count was necessary for this, though, so Rosanne tried drawing blood from my right arm. But no blood was coming out – and I have good veins! Onto the left arm, which thankfully worked. She didn’t want to waste a stick, so she left it in, saying we’d take it out once the port was working. It was uncomfortable and hurt, and made me appreciate the port all over again!

The approval came in for the medication, so the nurse (I never caught her name) pushed it in and left the vial attached. Half an hour later, she checked to see if it was working. Of course it wasn’t, so she left it in for another half hour or so. Thankfully by that point, it had done its job. Out came the stuff in my left arm, and I got the pre-meds and then the Taxol. Whew.

Now I only have FOUR treatments left! One for each week in February. This past week was similar to the one before, where I was dragging and had symptoms like nausea. Even yesterday and this morning, I wasn’t feeling great, when normally I’m in better shape. But the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter!