7 Down, 1 to go!

You have no idea how good it feels to say "1 to go"! It is just such a wonderful feeling! I am elated!

All my counts were great today. I am even out of the "anemic" stage due to the weekly shots of Procrit and iron pills that I have been taking to increase my red cell counts. So, because my numbers are so high (high for a chemo patient, not the average person) I did not need a Procrit shot today, nor will I get one next week. Again - in normal chemo patients it takes about 6 Procrit shots to raise the red cells to an acceptable level, it took me three shots to do this. I cannot explain it - it must be my bionic chemo powers! (whatever)......I'll take it!

My friends Alice and Ruth came with me today. We had fun and they were really happy to be a part of the process. We had a lot of great conversation (we always do - we work together at CooperVision and all 3 of us worked together on and off at Kodak) and we did some work. At one point we all had our laptops out doing our own work thing and discussing how each of us would handle things, or read email to each other, etc.....My nurse Gayle, just laughed at us - commenting that we all had our "flat screens" out! She is really not very computer literate.......but she is the BEST nurse!

I want to bring a gift to Pluta and my wonderful nurse, Gayle, for my last treatment. Ideas are welcome! No worries - Gayle doesn't read my blog (again the computer literate thing!).

Last thing on Gayle - she sends her condolences to Jamie's family on the passing of Uncle Mike. And she cried with us, again, as we dedicated this treatment of mine to Uncle Mike who did not get a chance to fight his cancer.

Oh - and another great thing at treatment today. I got a surprise visit from Jamie and CJ today! I did not expect it and this is the first time that CJ has come (Celia has never been - and I really don't want her to know CJ got to go). CJ is younger and really doesn't get what is happening, and I really don't want Celia to get too close to the process bc I have felt so good, there is no reason to scare her.

Anyway - CJ had a good time. The nurses gave him cookies and suckers and juice. He played with my personal TV, sat on my lap, asked about my medicine and was just overall a show stopper that made the whole room light up today! It was great!