In Eight Steps to Happiness Geshe-la says "'Self' and 'other' are relative terms, rather like 'this mountain' and 'that mountain ... 'This' and 'that' therefore depend upon our point of reference. This is also true of self and other. By climbing down the mountain of self, it is possible to ascend the mountain of other, and thereby cherish others as much as we presently cherish ourself."

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Chemo Yesterday: IP Taxol

Just to keep you informed, I had Taxol in my abdomen yesterday at the doctor's office. Overall it took about 4 hours, because they need to take blood from the IV port in my upper chest, wait for the results, then hook up my IP (intraperitoneal - that is, abdominal) port, run saline and a few anti-nausea meds through, then let the Taxol drip through for about 1 hour, followed by more flushing of the ports.
After the Benadryl went in, I feel asleep - so much for the reading I thought I was going to do. It didn't help that they had me lying flat in the Lazy Boy-type chairs they use in the chemo room. I sat up for the IV chemo I had last time in the office, but they recommended the extra-lazy position for the chemo administered abdominally.
I was directed to lie down for 2 hours at home, switching every 15 minutes between lying on my right side and my left side. I did the same maneuvers when I got the Cisplatin chemo abdominally in the hospital last week. Apparently they're taking advantage of gravity to make sure the chemo coming through the soaker hose-like catheter attached to the IP port gets widely distributed throughout my abdomen. It's very mechanical - unlike a lot of treatment, it's easy to picture what's going on.

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