On the Road Again

After only one night home together, it seemed too soon to load up and go back to Seattle, but apparently cancer waits for no one. Jamie took her first shower at home this AM using a shower bench I bought for the tub upstairs. I am sure glad we got that finished up this year. I couldn’t imagine her trying to use that dark and dirty unfinished bathroom downstairs we loving refer to as the “construction bathroom”.

As for the shower bench, it wasn’t cheap, so I am going to try to sell time shares. All you guys over 50 should really think hard about it. For $10 buy in plus annual maintenance fees, you could get full benefit of this high quality appliance, at a fraction of the total purchase price.

So, back to today’s voyage;

Being the sort of organizational nut that I am, I insist on traveling fully equipped to make Jamie comfortable under any circumstances that may arise; including spur of the moment overnight stays. Thus I have laid out a comprehensive strategic plan that includes,

Overnight bag; with spare clothes, medication bag and toiletries

Entertainment back pack; with DVD’s, laptop, I pod, headphones, magazines, crossword puzzle book, paperback novel

Comfort basket; blanket, pillows and neck pillow

File box; includes medical records, hotel maps and other misc paperwork

Zippered pad folio / binder; with business card organizer, notepad, pen and current med list and other paperwork

Snack cooler; Food and beverages to ensure hydration and a full stomach for meds


So I load all this up, not forgetting the most important item, Jamie. With plenty of time to spare and the clinic address pre programmed into the navigation (we have only been there from the north side via UW), we set off. Jamie was a trooper, I did my best to give her a smooth ride, but with every bump in the road I could see her grimace and clutch her stomach.

We made it to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) in a timely fashion and proceeded directly to radiology on the second floor. Thinking that we were early, I left Jamie in the waiting area and stepped around the corner to make a couple of calls. Still a few minutes before her schedule appointment, I returned and found her gone. A bit frantic I went to the receptionist and asked her if I could join my wife in the back. She phoned to whatever room Jamie was, but was told that it was too crowded. I took a seat right next to the door, and attempted to calm myself by reading a USA Today I found on a coffee table (apparently both the housing market and the pornographic DVD markets are both a bit slow, stocks are on the upswing though). After half an hour I am just about over the edge and a technician walks out the door. He strolls right pass me and when he is about 2/3 of the way to then opposite end of the waiting room, I think I hear him call “Crase”. I don’t know why I hesitated, but it took a minute before I replied “right here”.

He escorted me to an interior room where I found Jamie comfortable reclining in the medical equivalent of a lazy boy, covered in warmed blankets. Apparently the nursing staff had taken pity on her and allowed her to stay in the back room, instead of sending her out to the lobby to “enjoy” her berry / barium smoothie.

I was offered a folding chair alongside, where for the next hour I got a first hand look at the efficiency and professionalism this place has to offer. I won’t beat up our local outfit too much, but compared to our first experience her in Olympia, this was the difference between first class and Greyhound. Jamie got her Barium down, IV in and then she was whisked off very briefly for the CT scan. Although she had to remove anything metal, unlike Olympia where she was forced to disrobe and wear one of those revealing hospital gowns, she could wear her normal clothes in. After the scan they pulled the blood directly from the IV, thus minimizing needle pricks. A few minutes of observation and we were off to have a sandwich in the cafeteria.

After lunch we met with Heidi form Goff’s office, where she gave us a good briefing on the next week’s chemo and gave us a calendar for future visits over the next few months.

Although this week has been a bit hectic, it looks like for the rest of the summer we will be spending every other Thursday afternoon and Friday at the SCCA. So hopefully we can have some fun and try a few swank downtown Seattle hotels while we are at it. Any recommendations?

Dinner tonight was ala Martinez, keeping us right on track with the feeding / med schedule when we got home. It was nice to come home to a little fresh food in the fridge and not have to shop right away. Thanks Sharon and Pete. Jamie is enjoying the candy as well, although I have to abstain, apparently all those cookies have caught up with me for my pants are a bit tight.

As Jamie said in her post, our sleep schedule has been a bit screwy making sure that Jamie gets medication every 3 hours on a full stomach. And being the sort of worry wart she is, she sleeps for about 90 minutes before she starts asking me “what time is it?”. Then for the next hour and a half, she flops around, anxious that she will over sleep and let the pain get ahead of her.

So for tonight I have applied my managerial skills and invested in a digital timer. Hopefully this will give Jamie the piece of mind to sleep a little more soundly, knowing that she won’t sleep too long and I won’t be so grumpy.

We are glad to be back home and be with Shorty again. However he has not taken the presence of his stuffed imposter well, and I am told when he first entered the house and saw it on the back of the couch above Jamie, he went crazy, trying to climb over her and attack it. Just a warning Get Well Bear, you better steer clear as well.