The Anchor 💗⚓️💗 – Edition 10

Playing the maracas

#chemodemayo w/ TW

May 5, 2017

Dear Friends and Family

I wanted to give you an update as to how my week has been going.  This week was the first week that I was able to wash and blow dry my hair without any assistance!  Although it was nice having someone else wash and style my hair like I was at a hair salon, my mom’s services are no longer needed, thanks Mom for your help!  I also drove for the first time in weeks!  I did go grocery shopping by myself and was exhausted afterwards.  It was hard to push the cart and carry some of the items, so I think I will have TW go next time or maybe try ordering my groceries online and picking them up.

My port surgery was today and it went well.  The surgery was at 9:00 and was about an hour long and recovery was about an hour.  The doctor was very personable and has done 10,000 port surgeries, so I guess that makes me 10,001. 😉  The surgery was performed while I was under local anesthesia with sedation, so I was in and out of it during surgery.  I dozed off and woke up to the doctor singing, “It’s a Wonderful World”.  He continued to sing various other songs  while he performed my surgery.  If you would like to hear him sing, please listen to the link below.

Dr. B singing during my surgery

Chemotherapy consisted of about 2 hours in my own private room.  The port was flushed with saline and a steroid.  The actual Taxol was given to me for an hour.  After the Taxol was administered, the port was cleaned with heptadine to prevent clotting.  The chemo itself was not bad at all.  I sat in bed and read a book while TW watched tv.  The nurse did a great job checking on me and explaining everything that was happening.  So ONE round of chemo is complete!

As you can see in the pictures above, TW and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo at MDA with maracas.  Don’t worry, we ate Mexican food yesterday at one of our favorite restaurants. 

Anchored in HOPE, 

JW