Midday of RICE, day 2.

An eventful – and funny – AM. First I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth (and pee – the constant IV, you know) with my small traveling tube of Crest. I start brushing and the toothpaste tastes funny – very funny. I thought “how old is this stuff?” And look at the label to find I am brushing my teeth with the small traveling tube of Preparation H (brought along just in case…). Hope that’s the worse thing that happens today.

I went down the hall to get some coffee (along with my “tail”, the IV stand) and met another patient – Josh. We got to talking and I told him about my toothpaste mis-adventure and that I would probably post it. He then told me he’d started his own web journal. He’s actually having the same chemotherapy – ICE – but for a different lymphoma. Josh is 22. When I get the link I will put it here.

Got breakfast, but before I started Dr. Owen O’Connor, the lymphoma attending physician this weekend, dropped in. I remembered him for my July stay and he (he said anyway) remembered me. I told him about the toothpaste adventure and he said “well at least you didn’t put the Crest up your butt” which I hadn’t thought of. On more mundane level, he answered a few questions (including agreeing with Dr. Zelenetz on the dumbbell thing ([see post below]) and then re-started the Bactrim antibiotic. I had gone off it last week when I started the Augmentin for my sinus infection. I will be taking the Bactrim three days a week, prophylactically to prevent chest infections.

I then went down to 10AM Mass on the first floor. Got there at 10:02 and they’d already started. I thought, “this will be a quicky – we’ll be done at 10:30.” (I was off by 13 seconds). There were a total of 13 people at the Mass. I’m sure I recognized two people from going to Mass in July – a woman physician and a lady who takes communion to patients. 13 attendees is an incredible number for an institution with several hundred patients and hundreds more staff on a Sunday. Incredibly bad. Of course “The Church” (or whoever) doesn’t do much of a job of advertising the Mass or time. None of the staff on my floor (where the patients are mostly ambulatory) were sure what time Mass was. When I went to the front desk and asked, the staff was in the process of calling for the time, when I found the schedule on the sheet labeled “Patient Recreation Department.” Priests from the nearby Dominican-staffed parish of St. Catherine’s celebrate the Mass.

So now I’m back, checking my email, while the chemotherapy has just started.  It entails three different drugs and will run for about 27 hours.  So I hope I’ll be discharged around 4 o’clock, Monday afternoon.

More to follow later. I am reading a really fine book by Barbara Tuchman and will post about the latest book I finished a couple of days ago.