Week 7: Thursday

Well, its Thanksgiving and I am so very thankful this morning.  The first being that we are home.  I was doubtful yesterday after many promises of being able to come home for thanksgiving.  It might have been my impatience and anticipation of some interruption in our schedule for Wednesday.  In the end it was my own misgivings.  The second thing is for the thanksgiving dinner brought to us this morning by David's sister.  She has gone above and beyond.  Everything from food, fun and creating the table's thanksgiving ambiance.  The third thing we are thankful for is Jasmine's good spirits and happiness.  She was so excited to be home last night and yet again this morning.  She was so talkie last night, we could hardly get to sleep.  When she woke up, she was dancing for everyone to see.  
Her treatment went better than last time. However, our trip to DC could have gone a little smoother.  We got up late.  Like, really late.  I was supposed to be up at 4 am and David came in about 2:30 or 3 am from work.  I set my alarm and have no idea what happened.  Thankfully, I have a radio alarm clock that goes off at the wrong time every morning.  I'm so glad I've never bothered to fix it.  It went off at 5:15am as always.  We were supposed to leave at 4:45am or at the latest 5.  I flew out of the bed and told David we were late. He slowly got up and I flipped all the lights on.  I ran into the shower because I needed to wake up.  I got out and grabbed our stuff and packed it in the car.  We got Jasmine dressed and were out in the car ready to go in 15 min.  I forgot one thing.  We were near E on gas.  We had to fill up and to top it off there was fog so thick I could barely see the house across the road. We had the makings for the perfect morning.....NOT!  I was doubtful of many things at that point.  I was sure we would get there late, start her chemo late, and not be home for thanksgiving.  
We decided to take a different way as David suggested using his best friend TomTom. It was an alternate route.  We decided to take our chances with it.  To my surprise we were only a half our late.  The fog was a major delay for many apparently.  It never dissipated the entire ride. We split up and did what we could to make up for time.  David took Jasmine up to get her GFR started and I ran back to the car to grab diaper bag and her medication list.  We were in such a rush we forgot it.  Once that was done we got started on her GFR and headed up to her next appointment with her oncologist.  We made them aware that we were not done with nuclear medicine yet and had to go back down for one of the series of blood draws.  They suggested splitting up and making her next appointment and getting registered with admissions. David did both of those while I took her down for her blood draw.  I told the lab tech that she was getting admitted and we already had a room.  They could do the other draws on the floor.  He said it was fine.  By the time we were done.  David was on his way up to the floor when I just arrived.  We went to her room and saw a familiar nurse.  She was one of the good ones. She knew her stuff and we were comfortable with her.  We unfortunately didn't start her chemo until 5:30 due to the GFR results not being in.  
Jasmine got sick as usual but it was suggested to us that maybe we could try one other drug at her next admit.  It was kind of the last alternative. They would prefer that she didn't get sick at all.  Guess what so would we but it just wasn't happening.  We did get them to lag her meds and overlap them more to give us better coverage.  It seemed to work a little bit better.  She got major sick at 3 different times in total.  It was much improved in my eyes.  This time David caught one while I dozed off.  She did her usual and resisted the urge to throw up and out.  She swallowed it back down and fought us everytime.  She was very clear on what she wanted and didn't want.  We also figured we could avoid any further complications if we stopped bringing in the cafeteria food cart food (much of it fried and having a very unappetizing smell) into the room.  They would not leave you alone until made a visit and they always pushed you to get more than what you wanted.  We understood the importance of her trying to eat anything but it was clear she wasn't even going to go there.  She even refused to eat the sbarro's pizza I bought before we started her chemo.  She was not going to eat anything at this facility.  We would be lucky if she would even sip on anything.  She had definitely made up her mind.  So since we were paying for the food on the cart. Me or David would check out the menu and grab something for ourselves instead.  A food cart helper had told us this once before at another admission.  I thought it was wrong at the time but our visits to the cafe and cafeteria were starting to add up.  We needed to cut down on those.  It's not like they had any better of a selection.  Even the fact that they served Starbucks coffee was no longer a thrill factor.  All we needed was a cup of joe
Wednesday went about the same as any other final day of admit.  There is of course some change in plan when the nurse gives us the plan from rounds.  Now they wanted to sedate her for her CT scan and get it Thanksgiving morning.  Wrong.  I was not happy with this idea.  We had talked about possibly getting her a scan done this visit but I forgot one important factor.  Jasmine gets sick too frequently for her to be sedated in my book.  I was not comfortable with that at all.  I don't know how they could have been.  I told the nurse without barking it at her, that we would be coming back the next tuesday for labs and thought maybe they could do it then.  She just came on as our nurse and this didn't make for a good start.  I was right.  She avoided us as much as she could after that.  We literally had to use the call button to get her back in the room.  When she did have to switch meds, she did it at lightening speed.  When the doctors came back to see Jasmine, they were okay with the Tuesday idea.  What a relief!  They didn't realize we had an appointment to come back and were just trying to get it done while we were there.  So we dodged that bullet.  
We left the hospital finally at about 9pm and were on the road.  Traffic was not so bad but the speeders were definitely out.  It was actually kind of scary. People were doing 85-90 whipping by us.  I was not trying to attempt anything like that while I was tired. Hell, I wouldn't try that even if I was wide awake.  One slip of the wheel could lead to serious loss of control.  Some people can be so stupid. I just wanted to get us home in one piece.  We did at about a little past midnight.  Jasmine was asleep for the entire ride.  When we got in the house, she was wide awake.  OMG! This girl was playing and jabbering something like she had a jolt of caffeine. We tried to put her to bed after letting her get readjusted, and that didn't go so well.  She was lying in between us, babbling and laughing. At one point, I had just fallen asleep and she hit me with arm when she busted out laughing again.  I think it was about 1:30 or 2 when she finally settled down.  
I forgot to undo my alarm on my phone, so I was up early the next morning.  David's sister was coming by with the thanksgiving dinner.  I went ahead and started the coffee and the wash.  When she got her no one was up just yet except me.  David got up and brought Jasmine over to say hi.  She was just as happy as she was the night before.  Part of what made this all great was that she had not gotten sick yet.  She danced around for us. 
Jasmine had managed to stay pretty content throughout the day and eat well until dinner. She pretty much stopped.  I was not sure why.  Maybe it was the smell of food again that was starting to make her sick. I tried to make her at least drink but she wasn't happy with that either.  
After we finished our wonderful thanksgiving dinner, I took her off to bed with me.  She was tired. It didn't take much for her to fall asleep.  We watched some old SNL and we were both out like lights.  I still had my glasses on when I dozed off. David woke me up and told me I still had them on.  It had been a long day but a good one.  I was very thankful and now tired.