Day -20, Wednesday

After three full solid days of appointments, labs, scans, tests, meetings, more labs, fasting, more appointments, and quite a bit of waiting between appointments, I had to escape. First, I dropped my ballot off at the post office down the block, then beelined to a very empty cafe, where found myself sipping a light Chardonnay and waiting for some yummy Korean Salmon Noodle Bowl. For the record, both were delicious.

Today was good, my favorite part stumbling upon Dr. Hickstein, my main Bone Marrow Transplant Doctor in the hallway next to phlebotomy. I said I wanted to hug him, but knew that I couldn’t. He said he was only in the building to get his weekly COVID Test, but that I was looking good. What I didn’t share was that my backpack contained my 24 hour “pee jugs” – basically I had to collect my, um, pee for the past day. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the details.

I was supposed to get a Lupron shot to start my day – nope, not a fun after hours drink, but a 3-month shot that stops my menstural cycle. This is important because when I start chemo, my platelets will drop and my Team doesn’t want additional blood loss. I’m not one to argue; that being said, the NIH was out of the 3-month shots, so we’ll do a 1-month version closer to Transplant. Later there was the bone density scan, and CT Scans of my entire body. I cheered on my nurse when she gave me the least painful IV ever. And I rounded out my day with a 3-hour hematology appointment.

Yeah. 3 hours is a lot of time. 3 hours when you’ve been fasting and the coffee bar line is half way around the atrium and they need you in the clinic right now because your CT Scan took forever , well that was rough. I think that’s when I decided to escape under the guise of casting my ballot.

And I bookmarked my day with two workouts – a nice run this morning where I got completely turned around in the neighborhoods around Walter Reed and the NIH, and some yoga and a core workout this afternoon. I’m participating in my friend and former coach’s “Coretober” Challenge; I’m determined to complete my core work, even while going through Chemo. What can I say? I’m stubborn and goal oriented and doing small things every day that are good for me, well, that make me feel good.