Portland report
Jun. 2nd, 2009 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborahjrossTomorrow I head home after 6 days of being a chemo buddy. The best news is that my friend is doing extremely well. This was her last chemo session and although she was wiped out for a couple of days, it was only a couple of days, and she's feeling well enough to do a little riding on her nice Tennessee Walker mare and also to go back to work tomorrow. Her blood tests for tumor markers are normal, yay!
I arrived Thursday, settled in, helped with animal care (horse, chickens, goats, cats); then drove her in for the chemo infusion on Friday, shopped, cooked, washed dishes, did more animal stuff; next few days very much the same, minus the visit to the cancer center. Somehow worked in a half hour walk before breakfast on most days, plus plowing through the pile of books I'd brought. Another trip to the cancer center for a white-blood-cell booster injection, also one today for massage. She's been doing complementary alternative therapies (acupuncture, nutrition with a naturopath, massage) and feels it has greatly helped her tolerance of the chemo.
Now we wait, and her oncologist keeps an eagle eye on her. Or perhaps a chicken's eye? Her chickens, running rampant in the illness of their mistress, have been hiding clutches of eggs: she now has 7 chicks and another clutch of 5 eggs. Her onc, a lovely Chinese-American, said he'd been hoping for another patient that would pay him in chickens (!!!) and will take 3 hen-chicks (once they're grown up enough to be sure). Wonder if he'd like a goat as well?
I arrived Thursday, settled in, helped with animal care (horse, chickens, goats, cats); then drove her in for the chemo infusion on Friday, shopped, cooked, washed dishes, did more animal stuff; next few days very much the same, minus the visit to the cancer center. Somehow worked in a half hour walk before breakfast on most days, plus plowing through the pile of books I'd brought. Another trip to the cancer center for a white-blood-cell booster injection, also one today for massage. She's been doing complementary alternative therapies (acupuncture, nutrition with a naturopath, massage) and feels it has greatly helped her tolerance of the chemo.
Now we wait, and her oncologist keeps an eagle eye on her. Or perhaps a chicken's eye? Her chickens, running rampant in the illness of their mistress, have been hiding clutches of eggs: she now has 7 chicks and another clutch of 5 eggs. Her onc, a lovely Chinese-American, said he'd been hoping for another patient that would pay him in chickens (!!!) and will take 3 hen-chicks (once they're grown up enough to be sure). Wonder if he'd like a goat as well?
