January 24, 2024

Health update:
Catching up from Tuesday. That was my first chemo infusion that took about 4 hours and then had radiation afterwards.

The bill collector lady was blowing up my phone all day. I refused to answer the phone because I needed to focus on the chemo and the nurses checking on me frequently and informing me about the process.

My veins are typically in awesome shape but I think they knew the poison was coming and decided to hide when the needle got close. They had to poke me 4 times to finally get success. I drank a lot the days before to properly hydrate too. They injected saline and pre-meds first, mainly anti nauseous meds and a diuretics to encourage peeing and flushing the chemo outv of my body as fast as possible to reduce side effects.

Apparently I had a reaction to the diuretics meds which caused a lot of pain on my right side, from the front and around to the back. A whole team of nurses swarmed around me which freaked me out a bit. They stopped the treatment immediately to diagnose the problem. Back pain is a possible complication from the chemo drug Cisplatin but it affects both sides and not just one side so they felt like it was related to the pre-meds instead of the chemo. They had me walk around a bit and then we started again. No more problems after that.

Made it down to radiation just before they closed. I'm about to go into radiation and the bill collector lady is calling again. I broke down on the phone crying and saying I can't do this right now. I can't believe you're hounding me for money when I'm trying to get treatment. I had a cashiers check for $70,000 with me from borrowed funds and the rest will go on credit cards. The radiation manager said she could take the check that day and hold it for the bill collector lady and then i could pay the credit card amount the next day. So yesterday they wouldn't do my radiation until they got the rest of their money.

Still not done fighting with them about the money and the whole inhumane way they've handled this.

Aside from all that, I'm feeling pretty crappy which is why I haven't updated yet. Yesterday was mostly nauseous and very tired. I thought it would take a few days for it to kick in but it started pretty early. I'm taking all the anti nausea meds prescribed, as well as tummy drops which seem to help. Just having a hard time not staying in bed. But i just don't feel like functioning. Radiation is at 245 today and afterwards gets moved to the mornings from here on out.

Thanks for your continued love, prayer and support!❤️
#MelOfTheMountainsStrong