New Friend, Different Chemo, Great Day

Today started off a little rough. We left the house at 6:00am (like usual on chemo day for our 7:30am appointment) but the appointment was actually at 10:30am. So we were only 3 hours early. Rick snoozed in the recliner in the waiting room while I worked on purchase orders for school. It wasn't wasted time, just wasted sleep. While Rick was being injected with magic poison (chemo) I was having blood work, chest x-rays and a doctor's appointment. The chest x-ray looks good but there is something going on in my throat/upper chest area. I am going to use an inhaler with a steroid in it for the next week or so, to see if there is any change. If I'm still feeling the same, Dr. Eaton wants me to see an ear/nose/throat doctor to have him look in my throat to make sure nothing new is forming inside. I feel completely fine about it. Pam said I should have been taking Zicam and everything would be ok. I don't know how Zicam works on Lung Cancer but I could give it a try.

During my wait in the radiology department I kept looking at a woman who was sitting across the room from me. She looked familiar. Or safe. Or comfortable. Or like a friend I hadn't met yet. Never the less, I got up, walked across the room and apologized for staring (which she hadn't noticed I was doing) and we talked for a bit. We searched all the avenues we could, to find some thing. or place that we had in common ~ but we couldn't find anything. Later in the day, she and her husband were sitting in the waiting room where I was just heading to see Dr. Eaton. We started to talk again...and before you knew it...I realized we were suppose to meet. She told her husband to go to the cafeteria without her, she wanted to stay and visit. On her purse, she had a fuzzy crown dangling from the handle, and I asked what that meant. She said her name was Elizabeth and they call her Queen Elizabeth. She has lots of crowns in her collection. I got goosebumps. I told her how I was Queen Doreen and I showed her my crown necklace and the permanent red crown on my foot (tattoo). I found out her husband had been diagnosed with colon cancer at 40, was cured, but it found it's way back 11 years later in a different form. We talked until I had to go in for my appointment. The whole time I was in my appointment, I wished I had gotten her full name or an e-mail address or something, because I just felt a connection. If for nothing else, just to share fear, or laughter, or success stories. When I got back into the waiting room after my appointment, there she was. With her husband. She told him the story about our chance meeting, so when I arrived before them, he said "hey, you look familiar...do we know you"? Long story short, we exchanged names, phone numbers, e-mails, stories and hugs. It might not sound as amazing in writing as it did in person, but I know it was a Divine Intervention. We must need each other for something.

Rick chemo went very well (once we actually got into the appointment). They will be skipping one of the components (Avastin) of his chemo cocktail while he is having the Selective Internal Radiation Therapy because it makes his blood thin. He seems to be feeling better than usual tonight. Maybe it's because he had a little less poison today. Whatever the reason...I'm smiling about it. :) When Ricky feels good. Momma feels better :)

We had a Wrap Up Committee meeting tonight for Relay for Life. As of today, we have raised over $165,000 dollars. How proud we should be as a community!

Love you more than popcorn at the movie theater.

Dream Big,
Doreen