Girl, Interrupted

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I never saw this move.  From what I remember, though, it was about a a young woman (Winona Ryder) who had to spend some time in a mental hospital and had a lifer as a roommate (Angelina Jolie). The movie's title runs in my head all the time these days.   Girl, Interrupted. My life feels like it's in the middle of a long interruption, with a bunch of mini interruptions thrown in the mix.  Like a pause button has been hit, then the video skips, then pause is hit again....  I'm Winona....a Girl, Interrupted.  Angelina is my cancer.

Current interruption: an overnight stay at MD Anderson last night after 6 hours in their ER.  (Or what I hope is just overnight...haven't gotten the go ahead to leave yet.) My port that was placed on August 9th to deliver my chemo has been giving me problems since Monday the 21st (3 days after it was used for the first time to deliver my infusion).  It started to get tender again, then red, and then I started to have intense pain inside my body where all of the pieces of it are located: in my neck, shoulder, heart, and even into my back.  This came with chills and body aches.  I just assumed these were chemo side effects, so I started to take 2 Tylenol and 2 Advil every 3.5 hours around the clock to manage the pain.  At a post-op video visit for the port, the PA was immediately concerned with how the site looked.  He was are pretty sure that, somehow, my port had developed an infection which was the case of all of those symptoms.  I don't know how high my fever got because I was always taking fever reducers to be able to function in my day and sleep at night.

This is a diagram of what a port looks like and where it's placed, for reference.  My most severe pain was all around this area:

This is what it looked like on Wednesday at 3 pm, after having been mostly healed a couple days before.  I started oral antibiotics that night, but they weren't happy with how long it was taking it to get better, so they asked me to come to the ER yesterday afternoon and then admitted me for tons of tests.

This picture was taken this morning.   Such a difference.  I'm a lot more comfortable now and haven't had to have pain medicine since 11 pm.  

I'm a Girl, Interrupted.  This infection caused them to cancel chemo this week.  A small interruption in my large interruption.  I have to be ok with it though, and stay focused on the end goal.  All of this is leading to my eventual healing, which I'm thankful for and believing in.  God wants me to be fully well, and he'll make it happen; in spite of the interruptions.

If you've read this long, it's time for us to laugh a little bit.  😊

1. When my mom came for my first chemo treatment, she was in a waiting room while I had a procedure done.  When I came out, she told me about a woman in the waiting room who was there with several family members, and then had a speaker-phone conversation with another.  I asked if the lady was Hispanic.  My mom said yes and laughed.  I told her that I've noticed that the patients who talk on speaker phone in the waiting room are generally older Hispanic ladies, and they usually talk to several family members on the phone as they wait.  

WELL, last night in the ER was no exception.  I spent several hours in a small waiting room and the whole time, a sweet elderly Hispanic lady was across from me.  You better believe she had a full-voice, FACETIME conversation right there in the (quiet, small) ER waiting room with her son.  I learned deep details about their family I won't share here.  😂

(**Please don't write me a letter or an email or send an angry text about racially profiling.  I just have a good sense of humor and want to make us all laugh, because cancer sucks.) 

2. Here's my guy.  He brought me to the ER last night and spent the night with his 250 lb body crammed into a tiny recliner.  This morning, he wanted ALL the breakfast foods and was pretty impressed at the menu selection at the MDA cafeteria.  We left with two full breakfast meals, both for him.  I had yogurt. 😂

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