Thank yous, how Jeremy is doing, and incredible oncology nurses
First...to the ten or twenty people who have asked me how Jeremy the fox is doing....
GREAT.
T saw him a few days ago on one of her early morning walks. He was at one end of a bridge, she on the other. She knew it was him because he is distinctive, very small for a full grown fox with special markings on his face. She said that he showed no recognition of her, as he has in the past and he deftly turned away and sauntered into the woods, obviously waiting for her to pass by as would be normal fox behavior. The Jeremy we knew would have approached her with no fear and sniffed to see if she had a treat in her pocket for him. The new and older Jeremy has obviously been taught by his vixen (we found out that he has a partner, an older female fox who has shown up in videos with him, showing him how to mark his territory, etc.) on how to be a true fox.
We are glad for him. It is where he belongs. He no longer has mange. We, as a park collective, doused his treats liberally with Ivermectin when he was a baby and dependent on us. In fact, T says he has an incredibly beautiful tail now and lush reddish brown fur. And his aloofness is a GOOD thing. Foxes are not supposed to be comfortable with humans in a public park.
So.....yeah Jeremy.
Second, thank you to Anuj Agarwal at @_feedspot for choosing my blog to join his grouping of 100 Best Cancer Blogs. I try to keep it real. On my worst days, I think that someone will come after me and want to know if it's normal to truly feel THIS tired with cancer. I try hard to be honest. Some days are SO not pretty. Some days, I think that I now see the beauty of this world so much more clearly than the rest of you. Other days, I just tread water. Many, many days I just want to be with my wife and those I love in my nest. But, after I am gone, I want to leave something useful. This blog will be that, if nothing else.
Third, yesterday was a lesson in how tough the life of an oncology nurse can be. I was scheduled for chemo at 1:15. This was my easy week...meaning that it was my week to just get 2 shots of Faslodex, and one shot of Xgeva and B-12. I am on a 21 day schedule. It is week one: Halaven. Week two: Halaven. Week three: Faslodex, Xgeva, B-12.
And then start over again. The weeks with Halaven are long. I have to get bags of nutrients with it, thus taking hours and hours. My week with Faslodex is faster. I just have to get 4 shots unless my labs show that I am low on potassium, magnesium, or other nutrients.
So, my plan was to go to my 1:15 appt and be done in five minutes. I was shown to the waiting room. At 2:00, I opened the door, frustrated. No one had come in yet. A tech person walked by and said, "What are you still doing here?" I said that I hadn't been seen yet. She took me to the chemo room and sat me down in the one free seat. Told a nurse.
Usually the chemo room is a place of serenity. That day, it was a mad house. Loud, complaining people. The obnoxious BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of alarms going off, reminders for the nurses that a patient's chemo or meds were either done or there was a stuck line or something else wrong.
Mary, one of my favorite nurses, whipped by me, calling over her shoulder, "We'll get to you as soon as possible, hon. Just really busy today." I sighed and settled back in my chair, watching.
It was one problem after another. One patient had a machine that was uncooperative. Again and again, a nurse would thread a line through it only to walk away and have it start BEEP BEEP BEEPING again. Finally, three nurses tried over and over and finally determined that the problem was the patient's pic line. It kept crinkling. The patient was a mover and a shaker.
Another patient's son kept yelling at them.
"EXCUSE ME. My Mom is beeping, people. C'MON!!"
Did he think that they couldn't hear her? I was across the room and heard it. He just didn't want to wait his turn.
Another patient had unplugged her machine to go across the room to the basket full of candy, not realizing that this would cause the machine to BEEP.
But, most patients were just done with their medication. There were about 25 of us in that room and three nurses.
Many people lost their tempers. Pointedly told the nurses that they had to get back to work, had to still go buy Halloween candy, that their ride was waiting in the parking lot, etc.
AS IF this was the nurse's problem.
Not one nurse lost her temper. Not one. I swear that if some little entitled teenager had asked ME if I didn't hear his Mom beeping, I would have said something snotty. They didn't. All three nurses were unfailingly cool headed.
My appointment was for 1:15. I got my shots at 3:20. It WAS frustrating, but I kept my big mouth shut. Those nurses had enough on their plates.
Today, I went in at 8:30 to get a bag of magnesium because my labs showed that I was a little low. I was one of 3 people in the room. I asked one of the nurses what had happened yesterday.
"Oh, we had that little bit of snow on Wednesday and a ton of people just called to say that they didn't want to venture out into the weather, so we had to shove them all on yesterday. It was awful. I got home at 7:30. I was supposed to take my 3 year old trick or treating but his bedtime is 8, so my husband took him without me. I was so bummed!"
She pulled out a photo on her phone that her husband had taken. There was a little boy, dressed up as a panda. He looked adorable.
She missed it. His first Halloween! Bummer.
So, let's raise our glasses to those people. You know who they are. They are your nurses, your teachers, your grocery store clerks, your accountants. All those who go the extra mile.
Here. Here.
GREAT.
T saw him a few days ago on one of her early morning walks. He was at one end of a bridge, she on the other. She knew it was him because he is distinctive, very small for a full grown fox with special markings on his face. She said that he showed no recognition of her, as he has in the past and he deftly turned away and sauntered into the woods, obviously waiting for her to pass by as would be normal fox behavior. The Jeremy we knew would have approached her with no fear and sniffed to see if she had a treat in her pocket for him. The new and older Jeremy has obviously been taught by his vixen (we found out that he has a partner, an older female fox who has shown up in videos with him, showing him how to mark his territory, etc.) on how to be a true fox.
We are glad for him. It is where he belongs. He no longer has mange. We, as a park collective, doused his treats liberally with Ivermectin when he was a baby and dependent on us. In fact, T says he has an incredibly beautiful tail now and lush reddish brown fur. And his aloofness is a GOOD thing. Foxes are not supposed to be comfortable with humans in a public park.
So.....yeah Jeremy.
Second, thank you to Anuj Agarwal at @_feedspot for choosing my blog to join his grouping of 100 Best Cancer Blogs. I try to keep it real. On my worst days, I think that someone will come after me and want to know if it's normal to truly feel THIS tired with cancer. I try hard to be honest. Some days are SO not pretty. Some days, I think that I now see the beauty of this world so much more clearly than the rest of you. Other days, I just tread water. Many, many days I just want to be with my wife and those I love in my nest. But, after I am gone, I want to leave something useful. This blog will be that, if nothing else.
Third, yesterday was a lesson in how tough the life of an oncology nurse can be. I was scheduled for chemo at 1:15. This was my easy week...meaning that it was my week to just get 2 shots of Faslodex, and one shot of Xgeva and B-12. I am on a 21 day schedule. It is week one: Halaven. Week two: Halaven. Week three: Faslodex, Xgeva, B-12.
And then start over again. The weeks with Halaven are long. I have to get bags of nutrients with it, thus taking hours and hours. My week with Faslodex is faster. I just have to get 4 shots unless my labs show that I am low on potassium, magnesium, or other nutrients.
So, my plan was to go to my 1:15 appt and be done in five minutes. I was shown to the waiting room. At 2:00, I opened the door, frustrated. No one had come in yet. A tech person walked by and said, "What are you still doing here?" I said that I hadn't been seen yet. She took me to the chemo room and sat me down in the one free seat. Told a nurse.
Usually the chemo room is a place of serenity. That day, it was a mad house. Loud, complaining people. The obnoxious BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of alarms going off, reminders for the nurses that a patient's chemo or meds were either done or there was a stuck line or something else wrong.
Mary, one of my favorite nurses, whipped by me, calling over her shoulder, "We'll get to you as soon as possible, hon. Just really busy today." I sighed and settled back in my chair, watching.
It was one problem after another. One patient had a machine that was uncooperative. Again and again, a nurse would thread a line through it only to walk away and have it start BEEP BEEP BEEPING again. Finally, three nurses tried over and over and finally determined that the problem was the patient's pic line. It kept crinkling. The patient was a mover and a shaker.
Another patient's son kept yelling at them.
"EXCUSE ME. My Mom is beeping, people. C'MON!!"
Did he think that they couldn't hear her? I was across the room and heard it. He just didn't want to wait his turn.
Another patient had unplugged her machine to go across the room to the basket full of candy, not realizing that this would cause the machine to BEEP.
But, most patients were just done with their medication. There were about 25 of us in that room and three nurses.
Many people lost their tempers. Pointedly told the nurses that they had to get back to work, had to still go buy Halloween candy, that their ride was waiting in the parking lot, etc.
AS IF this was the nurse's problem.
Not one nurse lost her temper. Not one. I swear that if some little entitled teenager had asked ME if I didn't hear his Mom beeping, I would have said something snotty. They didn't. All three nurses were unfailingly cool headed.
My appointment was for 1:15. I got my shots at 3:20. It WAS frustrating, but I kept my big mouth shut. Those nurses had enough on their plates.
Today, I went in at 8:30 to get a bag of magnesium because my labs showed that I was a little low. I was one of 3 people in the room. I asked one of the nurses what had happened yesterday.
"Oh, we had that little bit of snow on Wednesday and a ton of people just called to say that they didn't want to venture out into the weather, so we had to shove them all on yesterday. It was awful. I got home at 7:30. I was supposed to take my 3 year old trick or treating but his bedtime is 8, so my husband took him without me. I was so bummed!"
She pulled out a photo on her phone that her husband had taken. There was a little boy, dressed up as a panda. He looked adorable.
She missed it. His first Halloween! Bummer.
So, let's raise our glasses to those people. You know who they are. They are your nurses, your teachers, your grocery store clerks, your accountants. All those who go the extra mile.
Here. Here.
Comments
Post a Comment