Magical Cat's Corner

Turn Me On Tonight; I'm Radioactive

I haven't blogged in awhile because I've been busier than ever, and the funny thing is that I'm not even working right now. On the first day of spring, I received my dose of radiation (for the zillions of bone tumors that I have). I had to travel to Philadelphia to get it, and Leslie went with me. We went to the hospital at UPENN. The radiation team was wonderful. They were nice and I felt like I was in good hands with them. The hospital, on the other hand, was terrible. First of all, it must have been designed by the person who designed the Winchester mansion. There were elevators that went to certain floors but not others, corridors that lead to no man's land, and very dismal waiting areas. Once I received the radiation, which took about 30 minutes, we had to wait several hours before they had a room ready for me. It must have been 7 PM before we got into the room, and they were still preparing it. By preparing, I mean wrapping it in plastic. Yeah, the Saran Wrap kind. EVERYTHING was wrapped... the bed rails, phone, TV remote, tray table, toilet seat and handles, light switches, faucet. Even the floor was covered in entirety with large sheets of plastic, which made it very slick. They also wrapped three large metal sheets in plastic and placed them beside and at the foot of my bed. I was in a plastic fortress. It was difficult to operate the volume dial on the TV remote through the plastic, and when I made a phone call, the person on the other end said "What's that rustling?" I decided to just use my cell. Before anyone entered the room, they had to put some booties on over their shoes, and when they left the room, they had to throw them away. We found it very strange that I was allowed to meander about the hospital all day after receiving my dose, but that they took all these precautions in my room. The whole thing seemed really wasteful to me.

To make matters worse, the TV only had 3 channels, and only one of those was watchable, and I use that term loosely. I had the Weather Channel, which is good for about 10 minutes. Then there was CNN Headline News. After seeing the same story about a new Kevin Costner movie for the fourth time in an hour, I settled on my third channel... ABC Family. I watched The Sound of Music because that's all that was on. They ran an ad during the movie that said the same movie would be played the next night and the night after that. Three nights in a row of the same thing. I felt sorry for anyone staying in the hospital more than one night. For a fee of $8 you could get more channels, but I thought that was ridiculous and did my crossword puzzle instead. Strike 1 for the TV stations.

The food at the hospital was very bad. I asked the nurse for a menu, and he had a strange look on his face. He brought me one, but there was essentially only one choice for a meal, and you could select your own drink. I circled what I wanted. That was around 6:30 AM. My food didn't arrive until after 8 AM, and it was not what was on the menu. They brought me two boxes of cereal and milk. I don't drink cow's milk but at this point I was starving, so I ate it. About 30 minutes later, they bring in another breakfast. I didn't touch it because I had already eaten. It looked gross anyway. At lunch they brought some chicken and pasta that was tolerable, but they gave me ice tea in a carton. It was disgusting. The food was strike 2.

I should have been gone way before lunch... around 7 AM, the radiation guy came in and checked my levels. He said they were good and left. The doctor came in at 8 AM and said I could leave. YAY! About an hour later I called the nurse and asked if I could be discharged. She said we were waiting for the radiation safety team to come before I could go. I told her that the guy had already been in that morning and she said "Oh, no, no, no... only the doctor was here." Oh yeah? Were you in the room? She proceeded to tell me that I couldn't leave until they came back. I asked if she could take my IV out and she said she would do that before I left. All right.

So a couple more hours go by, and I'm sitting there watching crappy shows on ABC Family and eating my crappy lunch on my crappy bed in my plastic room. I really, really wanted out of there. Leslie suggested that I call the doctor, so I left him a message. I must have paged the nurse three times to ask what the hold up was. Finally, she came back and said I could go... the radiation team had already been there. Noooooo, really? By then it was 1 PM. Strike three!

The nurse gave me a little purple and yellow flower since it was Easter weekend. Some charity group was handing them out to patients. It was a pain to carry it with my bag and purse, but I did. While sitting in the taxi on the way to the hotel I noticed the flower was fake. Good grief. I would have ditched it somewhere in the hospital if I had realized that before. Oh well, I don't know how I would have gotten it on the plane anyway.

I was exhausted after two nights in a row with little sleep, but I couldn't be in Philly and not get out to see it. Leslie and I went to Reading Market, which she discovered was right behind our hotel. We walked to Independence Hall and then got on a trolley tour that took us around to lots of sites. We saw Ben Franklin's grave, Betsy Ross's house, the art museum (home of the Rocky steps... "it's the eye of the tiger"), and lots of other stuff. There was a Rodin museum that I would love to go back and visit. The Thinker was right out front, and The Gates of Hell were behind that. Sweeeeeet. I wrote a paper on The Gates of Hell once.

All around Philly are interesting statues and sculptures, including Robert Indiana's LOVE sculpture (which is replicated everywhere), some Claes Oldenburg, Calder, and even some stuff done by actor Kevin Bacon's dad. I read about Robert Indiana and found that he was born in New Castle, just a 25 minute drive from my home town of Rushville.

I'm glad we had the chance to get out and see some sites in Philly, however brief it was. I have a lot of people to thank too... James and my mom for watching the kids, Leslie for going with me, Kim for the hotel and airline deals, Michele for letting me stay at her house, Michelle for keeping me company and bringing movies, Ji for coming to visit, and everyone else for moral support!

I will be going back to Bethesda in May to have follow-up scans. Keep your fingers crossed that these things are shrinking!