Along with the feast of la virgen de guadalupe, yesterday was my first post-chemotherapy appointment with Doctor Ahmann.
the streets of Tucson were layered with a thick fog in the early morning like I'd never seen. You couldn't see more than a half block away. it reminded me of northern California.
not long after I arrived and checked in with the front desk staff, i had my blood drawn. When I sat down and the nurse found my vein, I remembered how i got a blood draw every week for two months. i had forgotten about my regular trips to the sonoran quest labs and how i'd become a regular with the staff at the office off 6th St.. not to sound cliche, but it feels so far away now.
about twenty minutes later, i met with Doc. Ahmann.
He was glad to see my hair had grown back so thick. He gave me a general checkup, poked around my body and asked the usual questions: pain, discomfort, energy level, etc.
I mentioned my finger nails.
Last time I was home, Bean freaked out about the dark streaks across my finger and toe nails. They occured during chemo. but didn't cause me any pain, so i paid no attention to it.
Ahmann said the streaks were a result of the bleomycin and should be considered a normal side effect.
While looking at my back, he said the acne was drying up like it should. that's nice.
it was too early to get the results from my blood draw, but otherwise, he said everything looked great.
after the appointment, I wandered over to the elevator to visit everyone up in the infusion pod. i ran into an elderly gentleman, his wife and a young lady I assume was his daughter. he was thin and walked slowly. i noticed the blue bandage on his right hand. it was his shunt.
i remembered how adrian told me its important to talk to other patients and survivors, even if it might seem awkward. in my mind, I could picture adrian talking to the others in my pod when he came to visit.
so i asked the gentleman how he was holding up. we spoke for a bit. he had a positive attitude and sounded good. the gentleman said he started chemo. around the time i left the clinic. I told him he could do it and that I'd been done for about two months now. i tried to give him what encouragement I could. I noticed the ladies eyes widened when I told them I'd gone through two and half months but was doing better now. I embraced all three of them when we got to the second floor and went our separate ways.
among the pods, I ran into shelly, estella and another nurse, whose name escapes me for the moment. we caught up, albeit briefly. they asked about my parents, work, gave me props for my coverage of TUSD and laughed about the TB incident. apparently shelly dealt with the patient.
i also ran into Selena, who everyone up there knew as Maria. She's a local churchgoer and our families ran into each other often at the clinic.
it was nice to see everyone. but I needed some time away before i went back to say hello. they understood.
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5 comments:
Showing and not telling, George. That's the way to "tell" a story. It's also a story worth telling, the way you are sharing the layers of the thing, the reality beyond the side bite and the nut graf, you might say. Of course, the point is you, not the story. No one is ever "the story."
My mom's close friend has those kind of streaks on her nails, too, along with them growing out a bit curled. We took her last weekend to get them trimmed and painted. After being in the hospital for over a week and stuck at home on oxygen for a while she really needed the outing when she got some of her energy back. It's kinda amazing how something that small can bring up the spirits.
Anyway...you could always go emo and paint em black for a while. ;P
Okay. What I meant was that's a good job of writing!!
I knew what you meant doc. did the lady wife get into Florida safe and sound?
She's there working hard. Mum likes three meals a day -- home cooked with MEAT -- but then she takes two hours to eat because you have to encourage her to take each little bite. It could be worse. I'll fly out Xmas Eve.
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