Monday September 12, 2011
I have a dental appointment at 1:00 pm figure we'll leave the house at 12:30.
Roger wants my windshield wipers replaced, and get his hair washed at the barber shop (doesn't want to do it at the sink at home even tho we now have a handy dandy sprayer at the faucet since we had to replace the faucet) It is easier at the barber shop to get his hair washed. Can't do the hair wash at home, can't get the port wet.
At 11:50 Roger asks if I am ready
no, I figured we'd leave at 12:30
he's ready to go
we leave at 12:00
he's going to leave me at the dentist office while he goes to get windshield wipers and hair wash.
We head for town, stop at the auto supply, I go in to get the windshield wipers, come out
Roger sends me back inside to get someone to put the windshield wipers on.
I do and cashier puts on wipers.
We go to dentist office, they are closed. It is 12:20
They close during lunch hour 12-1
We head to get hair wash
Nice lady at shop washes his hair
Roger gives the lady $5 and we head out
Nice lady doesn't comb or brush his hair, so first things first Roger brushes his hair
We head back to dentist office. It is 12:45
We park in the shade and wait.
Office opens at 1 I get right in.
No waiting.
Roger waits outside.
I get my teeth cleaned, dentist checks my teeth, I am outa there.
We head to Tulsa.
Against my better judgement I do not medicate Roger for the trip.
I don't like to dispense pain and anxiety medication unless absolutely necessary and Roger agrees.
The decision not to medicate is a good one tho. Roger behaves much better this trip.
We get to Siloam and start checking the price of gas. $3.43. I think great when we get to the turnpike gas station it will be $3.37. It is usually a nickle cheaper there.
We get to turnpike gas station and the price of gas is $3.55. I am discouraged.
This is the first time I've had to get gas since the last trip. I have 1/4 tank of gas and fill it up. Car takes 8 gallons. So I have just paid 96 cents more than I should have, and I know I shouldn't complain because it is the first I've had to put gas in my car since the last trip 322 miles ago. I breathe, get coffee and Roger finds the old fashioned kind of lemon drops the yellow kind with sugary kind of coating, and he cleans them out-they have 5 bags. (note: the new kind of old fashioned lemon drops are neon yellow, these he has found are not the neon yellow). We head out for the last leg of the trip.
We have reserved a room this time on the east side of the Red Cross, thinking that it might be kind of fun to go to the casino for a bit and take $20 for entertainment. We get to the room. The bathroom vent fan is noisy. The air conditioner is noisy. The beds are hard as a board and the TV is about 17 inches. It was $10 cheaper than the room on the last trip. We get settled in the room and sit to watch the news. We are too tired to go to the casino. We are too tired to listen to all the noise associated with going into the casino. The bells and whistles, all those people, driving the two miles to the casino seem like too much for right now. So we go to the Arby's across the street for supper. I have a salad, Roger has a beef sandwich combo. It is not great food, but it is food and we go back to the motel. And we watch Eureka, The Closer, and Alphas.
And we shut the tv off and the lights and it is pitch black and neither one of us can see anything. So I turn on the noisy bathroom fan/light and shut the door and at least we can see the light from under the door. So we are trying to sleep with the noisy a/c, the noisy fan/light, and slamming doors noise from the hall way.
We sleep.
A little.
At 4:30 am Roger decides we should just get up and we turn on the TV watch some news, find a radio talk show on TV, real nice show not like the weirdo tv radio talk show.
At 6 am I head down to get some coffee, their continential breakfast doesn't start until 6:30 am but they do have one of those fancy thermos thingys with the pump on it, so I get two tiny stryofoam cups of coffee to take upstairs in the elevator.
I get to the room and the coffee is lukewarm. Lukewarm coffee is not good first thing in the morning.
So we decide to pack up and go out for breakfast.
there is a Waffle house near the Red Cross so we head there.
We find the Waffle house but there is no left hand turn lane to get there, but there is one about 1/2 block and I tell Roger to hang on and drive into the oncoming traffic really fast to cut into the waffle house. by the way, there was no oncoming traffic, nor was there any traffic behind me, but it sounded more exciting.
We order and eat at the Waffle house and they have hot coffee and the waitress keeps the cup filled and it was food to fill our tummies.
We leave to go to the Red Cross (it is only a couple of blocks) and it is 7:10.
Our appointment is for 8:30 but we go ahead and go in.
The night security guard goes back to tell the nurse we are here, returns to let us know she's still getting ready.
We are okay with that we are really early.
The security guard engages us in converstation, places to go in Tulsa, how big the city is these days, wildlife around the city. He's nice.
8:00 the nurse comes out to get us.
Yeah! It is nurse Amy again. She did the first leukaphresis and she is a wonderful nurse.
She gets started making Roger comfy and starts the plugging him into the white blood cell sucking machine.
I go get coffee (it is hot and fresh), and go pick out a movie, John Wayne in "the horse soldiers" and return to the room.
Amy is having trouble getting the port cleared.
Apparently the port shouldn't be used to draw blood for the blood tests, and really not for the infusion. That is unless the nurse who's doing the drawing or infusion knows how to put the right stuff in the port .
Well, that is partly our fault for letting the nurse on Friday use it to draw blood for his lab work at the oncologist. She put the wrong type of hepron in the port.
So, it took Amy about 20 minutes to get the port cleaned out and ready for the blood sucking machine.
But she took care of it and gave me instructions to give to the nurse on Friday for the infusion.
and she was real nice about the whole thing to us, not so kind to the nurses who did this.
And the leukaphresis took exactly 3 hours, and Roger did great. There were no chills this time, and he only had tums once (to replace calcium). I'd given him calcium chews the evening before and at breakfast. And I did medicate him with pain and anxiety meds.
And around noon we headed out.
Roger asks "Where do you want to go eat?"
knowing, as I do, that this is a trick question, I suggest the Las Palamas on the way home on the right side of the road.
And we stopped for lunch.
And arrived back home about 4.
and we were tired, Roger more so.
and I slept good,
Roger not as much, he has to get up several times for the bathroom,
but it was good to be sleeping back in our own bed.
and we decide to spend the $10 extra bucks for the nice motel room with the breakfast on the next and hopefully the last trip.
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