A Great Feeling

First of all…………THANK YOU to everyone that continues to follow me on my journey. Good thing I don’t have a complex about not sharing my life! I actually look at your care and concern in a positive light. I know that if something were to happen, it wouldn’t take very long for someone to come checking on me.

I feel like I’m already in a “rut” and doing the same thing over and over again, but I’ve definitely been doing some different things over the last 3-4 days. My Tuesday radiation appointment went really well. It was long and my back got VERY SORE from having to lie so still for so long, but I did survive it. Being that I didn’t have a clue as to how long the radiation and simulation treatment would last, I didn’t call Dial-A-Ride (DAR) for my return trip until I was all done with treatment. Ended up waiting close to 50 minutes before I got picked up……which in the scheme of things isn’t really that long at all.

After getting home, I promptly took a nap (starting to love the horizontal position). I called shortly after 6pm to set up my DAR rides for Wednesday and was told that I was too late….that I needed to call before 6pm. (That too was incorrect, as I have to call for a ride BEFORE 5:00pm. I left a message with a couple people Tuesday night, then called around some more on Wednesday morning before making my ride arrangements for Wednesday. Turned out just perfect, because Pat took me to drop off a prescription, then we went to the bank to make a deposit – then with time still to kill, we wandered around Wal-Mart for awhile. I found a couple blouses that I’ve been needing, so it was nice to have that piece of business accomplished. Radiation didn’t take nearly as long Wednesday, as they just needed to double **verify** that things were set up properly on the computer. They took a couple pictures and then proceeded with treatment. After radiation, we stopped at the grocery store and I stocked up on a few things. Then on to home.

I didn’t realize until evening that I hadn’t picked up my prescriptions from the pharmacy. Since I still had drugs to take, I just waited until this morning and had a neighbor guy drive me to Walgreens. Also went to the bank and stocked up on $1 bills. The DAR folks don’t give change. So if my ride costs $2.50 (which is what each ride is), and I give them a $5 bill, they cannot give me $2.50 change, or even apply it to my return trip – since I usually will get a different return driver.

Oh, I also learned to BE SURE AND MAKE ARRANGEMENTS ****prior**** TO MY NAP for pick up the following day. This program that funds the DAR for people like me is federally funded and so there are extremely strict rules and much paperwork that needs to be filled out each time I travel. So even though I know my exact pickup time every day for the week, I have to actually call in every single day and request the service. Not bad once you know, but still quite a pain.

Speaking of pain……I had absolutely NONE on Wednesday. And it was pretty much totally under control today as well. I think this is due (at least in part) to the Oxycontin finally kicking in. I now can easily go 4 hours between the quick-acting (or spike) drugs. And if I do go longer than that and start to feel pain, the medicine kicks in a lot sooner and I get relief much quicker. That is a HUGH BLESSING. I’m still having some issues with constipation, but we’ll get that figured out too.

Today’s session was really quick, and should be very typical for hereon out. The taxi got to my house around 12:30pm, and I was physically back inside my house by 2:05pm. I actually had the same driver that dropped me off.

Now it’s almost time to call it quits for the day. I’ll stay up for the news and then off to nighty-night time. Please know that I have many reasons to be having great feelings. One is all of my many wonderful friends, and the other is to actually FEEL GOOD. Unless you’ve felt lousy for as long as I have, you don’t have any idea just how great it is to feel “normal”. All of your prayers are being answered. I also feel great (and humbled) by that.