Catching Up and Jim's Last Chemo Treatment

DeBary, FL.

76 deg. clear, S. wind @ 5 mph.

Forecast for Sunday =  Partly cloudy. High around 80F. Winds ENE at 10 to 20 mph.


Well, most of Jim's hair is gone. Linda did cut it last Saturday and now it's only about 1/2 inch long. Jim said that he hadn't had hair this short since his military days back in the early 60's!! ;-)

Sunday, not much happened around here, but Monday, Linda and Jim decided to go grocery shopping. They went to the  Publix Grocery store in Orange City and they both grabbed one of those electric shopping carts to ride around on in the store. Everything went fine, but by the time they had carried the groceries into the house, Jim was completely wiped out and Linda was dragging her feet too. (These stronger Chemo treatments are really taking a toll on Jim's energy level).

For dinner, they had a Pizza delivered here to the house so no work was involved.

Wednesday was a "recoup day" but by Thursday evening, it was decided to use one of the gift cards that they had received for Christmas and head over to the 5 Guys hamburger place in Orange City. The burgers were good, but neither Jim nor Linda thought they were worth the price and were glad they had the Gift card to pay for them.

Yesterday morning, Lila took Jim and Linda up to Deland for Jim's Last Chemo Treatment. It was another one of the stronger treatments and by the time they stopped at Gram's Kitchen for a bite to eat and got back here, Jim was really tired and starting to have a lot of bone and muscle pain. Some medications that Jim had received from the doctor, helped that a quite a bit though.

If you remember, the last time Jim had received one of these stronger treatments, his white blood cell count had dropped to a level where he could have easily caught some type of an infection. Well, this time after the treatment, they put this "On Body Injector" on Jim and as of about 7 PM this evening, it will inject a drug call "Neulasta" into his body.  "Neulasta" stimulates the bone marrow which raises the white blood cell count. It also causes bone pain, so I'm sure Jim will have to take more medications tonight. :-(

This is the little device that Jim has stuck to his body. There's a little green light that flashes about every 4 or 5 seconds and tonight, it's supposed to "beep" 2 minutes before it starts injecting the drug and then it will take about 45 minutes to inject the drug. Then, after it "beeps" again, Jim can remove the device.

What won't they think of next??? Oh!! I guess I'd better explain that this Neulasta drug has to be administered no less than 24 hours after the chemo treatment. It was about 4:00 yesterday when the chemo treatment was finished. so 7 PM tonight will be 27 hours. 

This last treatment has really sapped Jim's strength and endurance. Hopefully this side effect won't last too long and he'll be able to do some things without getting tired right away. 

Did you know that on this date in 1833 - Peterborough, NH, opened the first municipally supported public library in the United States? 

Woof!!!