One nasty cocktail down, and a honeycombed head

I had my final AC treatment yesterday.

It's a long walk down an eerie tunnel from the parking garage to the elevators that take me to Oncology and Infusion.

While I was waiting to check in to see my Oncologist, there was a couple ahead of me at the counter. I threw my bags down on a chair and waited behind them to check in. When they were done, they sat next to my bags.

After coughing up my co-pay (which OMG doubled form $5 per visit to $10), I picked up my bags from the chair and sat next to the couple. They looked about ten years younger than me. The man asked if I minded telling them where I was in treatment. I told them. The woman had surgery last month, had a chest port, and was there at that time to get the pathology report from her surgery.

Boy, did that sound familiar.

I told them what it's like for me, and said that it's different for everyone.

An elderly gentleman was sitting across from us, listening and chiming in occasionally. When the couple left, he came and sat next to me, after asking if that was okay.

We chatted for a bit. He used a phrase that I liked. When I asked him if he was tired from his radiation therapy, because I've heard that's a side effect, he said "It sapped my native power."

I didn't feel like swapping many cancer stories, so I asked him where he was from.

"Originally?", he asked.

Yep, I said.

"You ever heard of Montana?"

Yep, I said.

"Well, I'm not from there."

About the time I was done LMAO, the nurse came for him.

When it was my turn to see the very busy Oncologist, he said my white and red blood cell counts looked good. While he's not particularly demonstrative, I think he's happy with how I'm tolerating the medications.

After our chat, I headed over to the Infusion Center. About an hour earlier, while parked on the street, I discreetly unbuttoned the first two buttons at the top of my shirt, dabbed some Lidocaine cream on the chest port, and covered it with a plastic bandage. This numbs the skin stretched over the port.

Nasty port needle

Nurse Vicki took off the plastic bandage, held up the nasty needle contraption for the port, counted to three and when I inhaled, she punched my skin with it.

The Lidocaine worked and I didn't feel the punch. I should have, because the needle is very thick.

I then had to wait about a half-hour for the poison to come up from the pharmacy. 

I got the two doses of chemotherapy and left.

I had about a half-hour wait in the pharmacy to get all the meds I need to take to counteract the side effects of the chemo.

There's almost as wide a range of humanity at the pharmacy as there is on the #7 bus.

******* 

Today, Saturday, Marvin arrived at 10 a.m. to do the next henna tattoo. He's the token male in the line-up of artists that have kindly agreed to dabble on my hairless pate. 

He recently bought a company called "Jerry the Bee Guy" and when he was in our kitchen, he looked up and said "You have dead wasps in your ceiling light."

He could tell by their silhouette that they were wasps.

Marvin showed me some designs he was considering. We both liked the hexagon shapes he'd sketched. They looked similar to the shape of a honeycomb.

I asked him how bees make that shape, and he told me that bees (wax) and wasps (paper) make their nest cells in a round shape and their body heat reshapes the cells into hexagons.

He incorporated some bee-like critters into his henna project.

I had mixed the henna at 8 this morning, and this time diligently followed the directions.

 

I plan on keeping the crusty henna on my head as long as possible, to give it every chance I can to take well this time.

 

It took Marvin about two hours to complete what he wanted to do.

 

 

He was obviously nervous at first and said a couple of times "I haven't worked on a shape like this before."

Well, at least it's nicely-shaped, as so many people have been telling me since I've gone bald.

It reminded me of when I'm starting a piece of art. Sometimes at first, I don't think it's going to work out. Then, as it progresses, I realize that I know what I'm doing, and if I'm patient, I'll be happy with the end result.

I think that's what happened for Marvin today. He's a very good illustrator, and even though the shape of my head was not a surface he was used to, his skills were such that it worked out. When he was done, he was very happy with it.

Joline El-Hai came by and watched. She'll be doing a henna tattoo next weekend.