Ow still.

I just looked back at that previous posting and noticed what time it was. Shortly thereafter the painkiller rejection started. The bottle had one of those little stickers on it that said, 'take with food if nausea occurs.' Well, it occurred, and occurred again, and again. It was like someone had a big button connected to my stomach. No amount of feeling it coming or breathing my way through it helped.

So the painkillers were no longer helping. Looking up the ingredients, the bulk of the pill was good old fashioned acetaminophen; Tylenol. So I switched. By Friday evening, the swelling had tacitly lessened though the pressure and ache were still present.

Friday was punctuated by another nasty phone call from the radiologist' resident paperwork nazi who claimed she didn't have my referrals for treatment. I explained this was taken care of a week ago and that -all- of the visits had been approved. I hate arguing with idiots and I wished I'd just reminded here -again- to call my case manager; a resource I'd given them from my very first visit. I'm still ticked off enough to plan to raise the roof on Monday if there is any question when I make my first treatment visit. I do not intend to leave this lady's rude broken-English hassle lay. Communicating clearly and politely ought to be a requirement in her position.

This made for a lengthy Saturday with a few downer moments. It's only been a few days since Lockheed told me to cut my hours and while I disagreed, I hate that it looks like I will need the time off sooner than later. Getting in and out of my own car was a small test on my sloped driveway. Knowing the tires need to be swapped but knowing I can't do it felt crummy too. It's leaving me feeling like the cancer is allowed to take and take and take away from me and I can't do anything about it. :(

Btw, the above pic is what I look like when I'm trying to appear my most weak and downtrodden. The smirk gives away that I am trying to look like I feel bad but am really just feeling bummed out. ;)

For the record, the incision and my smirk are about the same size. What you cannot see is the contour of my chest below my collar bone that has changed. Aside from the swelling where the sickly yellow bruise is there is a nice bump where the port now lives more toward my sternum. It's about the size of a Dove Chocolate Miniature with three little bumps on its face to help locate the squishy part for needles. As the swelling and the pain have gone down, I've poked around it while reading the collection of literature it came with. Imagine that; me reading the owners manual. One nice thing I noticed almost by accident is that my seat belt does not squash the little guy. If we still happen to be attached to one another by the time I can hit the track again, I don't think I'll have to worry about high braking g's. :D