Yesterday's session was different from the first session in several ways. First of all, yesterday presented a much older and primarily female cast of patients. Lots of lost hair and as you see these women, you realize that some facial structures handle the loss of the hair better than others, but I wasn't really able to tell what made the difference. Ed is thought to have some chance of having his hair thin, but much less likely to lose it entirely. And since the thinning of both our heads of hair has been in evidence for some years, we may not notice the difference in a speeding up of it for him.
The first chemo, I was struck by how young the nurses were...mostly in their very early 30's or late 20's. I wondered if there was a lot of burnout, leaving this a field with none of those experienced, savvy, and often extremely calm nurses you meet in hospitals. But yesterday, there was more of a mix, and the 40-year-olds were clearly there with their practicality and calmness. Ed's nurse was Kathy and, unlike last time (because we were newbies? because Kateri was a much younger nurse?), Kathy's approach was more matter-of-fact, less detailed in a teaching way. She projected the impression that what was going on was perfectly normal and perfectly easy to manage. And it was calming, even though I, at least, was much calmer this time before I got there since I knew more of what to expect.
Also, this time, Ed did not have one of the 'comfortable chairs' because he chose one of the other kind, primarily because we had been told that the chairs closer to the main office had better wi-fi coverage. And, indeed, the connection was excellent and, after 5 pm, really, really fast. (That, presumably, because the bulk of the staff using the compters had gone home, leaving us with the broadband internet connection more or less to ourselves.) The less comfortable chair did not recline, but it was perfectly comfortable, Ed reports.
He spent almost the whole 5+ hours working on the computer: creating a slide show to be used in connection with the marketing/selling of the B.C. log house. Apparently real estate is now dominated by websites and all that entails. You can see his current slide presentation (which was all being uploaded after 5 pm yesterday at the infusion center, which is how he knew that the connection was really, really fast) here. He was pleased to be able to use his time so usefully. (Although we might try to think that the chemotherapy infusion was also a good use of his time. However, it's so amorphous, that, at least so far, it's hard to keep that in mind.)
It did occur to me that if only we had a Mac (you are right, Shelly), he could have had the whole experience projected to whomever via a web cam. Be there with me (and with him). Not much happens most of the time. Alarms go off constantly, but they are nice, low-level electronic beeps indicating that some little plastic bag is now empty and needs to have a new little plastic bag attached for a new infusion. When the alarm goes off, a nurse always comes within moments: might be your nurse, might be somebody else's, but whoever it is that comes goes about the business quickly of turning the alarm off and moving the process along. What was particularly noteworthy in this process was that the patient's regular nurse for the day also showed up promptly but did not take over the business from the nurse who had shown first. And she always thanked the nurse who was doing the work in a formal kind of way. I must have heard these thank-you's exchanged two dozen times during the afternoon. If I were more of a sociologist, I might know what to make of it. But I'm not; nevertheless, it was strangely interesting.
