I hate my IV machine

I have a headache from not sleeping well, as usual. I often sleep 8-9 hours a night, but it's not good sleep. Either I have nightmares (last night I had MULTIPLE nightmares, ugggh that was unpleasant as all hell), or my stupid IV machine goes off. Sometimes I take half a sleeping pill to fall asleep, and it knocks me out, but it works a little too well--if my IV machine starts beeping in the middle of the night, I'll hear it in my sleep, but I won't be able to wake myself up to press the bell to call the nurse to come turn it off. It's so annoying! The night before last, I tried to wake myself up over the course of a half hour. A half hour of that fucking beeping. OMG. A couple of times I managed to wake myself up, but when I did, I fell right back asleep before I could press the bell. And when I finally DID wake myself up completely, it took another 15 minutes before a nurse came to turn off the beeping. That was a great night.

I really, really hate my IV machine. On top of the annoying sounds it makes, it's so big and clunky and really a GIGANTIC pain in the ass to lug around. Dragging it with me to the bathroom is no fun at all, and trying to maneuver around the room with it is close to impossible. The way my room is configured, there's very little space between my bed and the table next to the wall, the machine that takes my vitals, and the cupboard, so getting from one end of the room to the other is close to impossible. It's beyond frustrating. Sometimes I get so aggravated that I just smash the IV machine through anything that's in my way, which has nearly causes it to fall down, which would be terrible if it actually happened for a number of reasons. Arrrghhhhh.

Anyway. I've said it before and I'll say it again--thank the gods for Jpop!

Ughhhhh so tired. Maybe I should take a nap. But I'll just end up being disturbed by people coming in here, so maybe not.

And if you go chasing rabbits...

Holy antihistamines, Batman! Hydroxyzine + Benadryl = being almost too high to type. It sure feels pleasant though, I'm not gonna lie! Hahahahaha. It goes well with the music I'm listening to and the snow falling outside. 

Well, lots of good news today--I found out I don't have an infection, I got my results from the cardiogram and found out my heart is doing fine, and I'm out of Isolation. Good stuff! So far today is much better than yesterday.

My dreams were hella weird, as usual. I should start writing them down 'cause they are really fucking insane.

Crap day

Today has been a crappy day. Being put in Isolation. Chest pain and dizziness. They gave me another cardiogram, and I don't find out the results until tomorrow morning. I hate waiting! They looked at my heart quite closely before the chemo, as chemo is quite hard on the heart. Apparently I have a perfectly healthy heart, so hopefully that description still stands. Blah! I hate not knowing what's happening to me! The chest pains are nowhere near as bad now, but I'm still a tad lightheaded and of course a little anxious about the cardiogram results.

I've been bombarded with gifts since I've gotten here. Not just small gifts either, but really expensive ones, too. I don't even know what to say to people. I mean, I say "thank you", but that doesn't quite cut it. I'm so grateful for my friends and family, it's overwhelming! As a result, my hospital room is starting to look like a Mac store. I guess I'm officially a Mac chick now. Hahahaha. All I can think of is this awesomeness:

Oh wait. I was going to link to a really hilarious anti-Mac article from one of my favourite websites, The Best Page in the Universe, but it's BLOCKED from the hospital's server! THIS is the message I get:

Site blocked. www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net is not allowed on this Patient Internet Network.

This site was categorized in: Humor, Blogs, Tasteless

Are you fucking kidding me?! This isn't a school where children are going to use the internet and maybe see something they shouldn't. What the everloving fuck. 

As if cancer hasn't been making me moody enough, now I'm really angry.

Isolation

They're scared I maaaay have an infection so I'm stuck in Isolation. All that means is that whoever comes in here needs to wear a mask, gown, and gloves, and if leave the room I gotta do the same. Fuck that. I'll just stay here and internet. I guess that means no shower today. I can't take a shower very well by myself--I need Mike to help me--so I guess I'll wait til I'm out of Isolation. Good. I don't feel like taking a shower anyway. It's such a long and exhausting process in this state. Fuuuuck that.
On the plus side, I'm not allowed in the family room, which is where my lunch is, so I get to just sit here on my ass and play around on the internet and play DS while the nurses go fetch my lunch and warm it up for me, etc. Bring me my stuff, minions! Ha!

Last night I read blogs of cancer patients. Except I fixated on the blogs of those who didn't make it. I don't know why I did that. Morbid curiosity, I guess. But once I started doing it, I couldn't stop! It wasn't fun at all. I wish I had thought of a better way to spend my time, but it's too late now--what's been read cannot be unread.

Thank the gods for good music. I'm listening to Final Fantasy and jpop at the moment, and it's FANTASTIC. <3

And so it begins....

My hair started falling out! It's been one week and two days since I've finished chemo, so it was only a matter of time. Weird shit. I'm going to get a wig when I leave here, but while I'm in the hospital I obviously won't need one. Soon I'll be wearing bandanas though! Luckily I already have so many of them, I'll have to get Mike to wash them and bring them here.

I often hear a happy-sounding chime followed by a recording going, "Attention, attention. Code Blue! Code Blue in (floor/room)." I found out today that Code Blue is someone crashing (no longer breathing, cardiac arrest, extremely high blood pressure, etc.). I hear it every second day or so. Now I know what's happening when I hear it. Creepy. I wish the chime that accompanied it didn't sound so cheerful; it makes it even more off-putting somehow. o_O

Drugs and dead celebrities

One of the only pluses (if you can even call it that) of being sick is free, legal, safe drugs. Dilaudid is an interesting painkiller I've been given a few times since I've been in the hospital. In pill form it does absolutely nothing for me (seriously, it's like taking children's regular-strength tylenol or something), but injected? Hooo boy, it's a helluva drug!

Right now I'm in the process of receiving a blood transfusion, which is often preceded by an IV drip of Benadryl. Benadryl is a nice, cozy high, and seeing as it's St Patrick's Day today and I'm stuck in here rather than partying on the streets getting drunk with my friends, it's nice to at least be buzzed. :P However, the problem with Benadryl is that once the high wears off, the jittery, antsy, restless legs 'kick' in (sorry for the pun, but it's too accurate!). And right now I'm at that stage. YUCK.

On the....strange and/or positive side of things (not sure which adjective to use here), I'm feeling unusually brave and indestructible today. To the point that I finally googled two Japanese performers whose work I really enjoy....who I know both died after being diagnosed with leukemia, both around my age. When I was diagnosed, I thought of the two of them immediately. I wanted to google them to read the details of their deaths; how did they die exactly--was it the leukemia itself or complications thereof? How long after their diagnosis did they die? What kind of leukemia did they have? But I was much too terrified to look up the info, as one thing I clearly remembered about both of them was that they didn't live all that long after their diagnosis. :(

One of the performers in question is Shiho Niiyama. She played Seiya, Sailor Starfighter in the Sailor Stars season of Sailor Moon. I clearly remember when she died, in February of 2000; I was so shocked and so sad as Sailor Moon is one of my absolute favourite TV series of all time, and she was only 30 when she died. She had a TON of other notable anime roles, but nothing tops Sailor Moon for me. Well, I looked her up today and she was diagnosed with leukemia (not sure what kind) in 1998, and died in 2000 from complications from pneumonia.

The other performer is Minako Honda, an 80s pop star who turned into a very successful Japanese Broadway actress. She was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (so, NOT the same kind as mine) in January of 2005 after feeling short of breath (well well) at a concert. She kept getting treatment and kept having relapses and died seven months later. She was only 38.

Anyway, I read this info today with no fear or feeling of doom at all. I refuse to have the same fate as them, I simply refuse to. I feel stubbornly confident and big-headed over this. At least today I do. I guess that feeling can change from day to day, as my emotions in general do. The doctors warned me from the beginning it would be like this. A rollercoaster of emotions or whatever. Well, it makes sense.

Anyway, I wish I could have green beer. At least I'm wearing green socks today!

Surreality & lack of contact

Going from hanging out with friends watching DVDs and playing video games to suddenly and seemingly randomly being hospitalized with cancer is a very surreal experience indeed. And that's a huge understatement. I've been in the hospital for two and a half weeks now and it all still feels somewhat surreal. Sometimes my dreaming life feels like the real one. How weird is that?

Something that really sucks (well, that's from a long list indeed) is that I can't hug or touch anyone as I have no immune system left at the moment, so I can't risk picking up any germs, bacteria that could cause infections, etc. Red Dwarf is one of my favourite TV shows of all time (fellow fans may recognize the reference to the first book in the title of this blog) and when I'd watch it I always wondered what it would like to be Rimmer (a hologram), never being able to touch anyone, never being able to get a hug from anybody if he needed it. Now I know what it feels like and it's really, really, really terrible. I can't even cuddle up with my own husband, ffs. And I need to do so more badly now than ever. What an annoyingly crappy unfair position to be in.

I can't hug anyone who comes to see me, I can't hug anyone to thank them for the gifts they bring me....ohh, that's another thing---gifts! I've gotten so many. I'm so grateful and happy for them all, but omg. It's overwhelming. I'm not used to this and it almost makes me feel uncomfortable, getting showered with so many presents. It's great, of course, but it takes some getting used to. Does that sound weird? I've gotten so many adourable stuffed animals. I'm not allowed to touch them, but I can at least look at them. They're all up on a shelf in the room, looking over me. Yay for that, at least!