January 4, 2020

July 2019 - 5th Chemo Session, Port Pain and Tidying Up

July 30, 2019 - Almost half way there with this round of drugs.

Do You Want To Pay on Your Bill? 

When I registered they asked me if I wanted to "pay on" my bill.  I haven't seen any real bills from them other than looking at the bills coming though from BCBS.  I told them "no"  I did not.

I've decided I would wait until August to deal with the medical bills:
  • I will call BCBS and go through all of them from last plan year which ended June 30th, pay those which shouldn't be more than  the $5,000 which is the max out of pocket.  
  • Then I will deal with those bills starting July 1st which should be no more than another $5,000 which is the max out of pocket. 
  • Ideally this should not cost me more than $10,000.  Last time I looked at BCBS website the total billed was up to $93,000.  Ridiculous!  That's another entire blog post. The cost of treating cancer.

Blood Pressure Check - Still Have White Coat

Started out with a high blood pressure reading mostly because of white coat syndrome and the lady who was taking my blood pressure was talking toooooo much.

My blood counts were hanging in there so we went through the pre-drugs and one Chemo drug.

The Regulars

Some of the regulars were there getting treatment:
  • The 33 year old with the three kids who seems like she is fully embracing this.
  • The lady who had a birthday party last week who is on maintenance drugs. She has a lot of friends and support. 
  • The one lady who wears a ball cap (she rang the bell...meaning she' done with Chemo).
  • The lady and her husband who when she's not looking he is looking super stressed about the situation.

Port Pain

I was having problems all week with my port hurting.  I told my nurse and she did a couple of checks, checked with the oncologist and they said they would watch it and see how it is next week.  Otherwise she said we would have to do an ultrasound and she didn't want to put me through that cost because from what she could tell it looked okay.

She was worried at first that it could have been a blood clot but from her test/touching/feeling she didn't think it was.  I think I know what it was.  My normal nurse did not do the final cleaning out the port the last time and a new nurse helped me but I just didn't think she knew what she was doing. Now the port area does not hurt at all. Thank God for my treatment nurse, she is the best best best I could ask for.

Wasp Sting


Half way through the treatment; the mother of one of the patients was stung by a wasp.  It flew into her chest.  It was bizarre!  She got bit so the nurse came over and put some alcohol on it.  I hope she's going to be okay.  They are such a nice family.  They seem like a close and happy family.  I like talking to them.

Black Folder Updates and Cleaning up

I still haven't updated my black folder.  It seems a lot harder since the cancer diagnosis.  I  don't know why. There seems to now be sooooo much to do:
1. New letter to David
2. Update Will (it's more than 10 years old)
3. Close out all these old website accounts
4. The Shop records
....so much ...
I've decided to start by going though the Marie Kondo method of tidying up.  Basically I'm discarding
a bunch of JUNK.  The method is to ask yourself "Does it bring you joy?"  So much stuff that did not bring my any joy in my space.  I figure this is the time to do it while I'm out of work for a while.  Actually this feels great. Once I can get everything here and the shop cleaned up...I'll update my Black Folder.

I will remember how I DON'T want to update the Black Folder and have compassion when others don't want to deal with it either...but deal with it we must.

Peace,
Ridea