CRAZY!!

Those who read yesterday's blog know that I stayed up all of Wednesday night. At around 8 a.m. I did start to feel sleepy. I intended to sleep until 11 before starting our errands, but I forgot to set an alarm or tell Mark; consequently, I slept until noon. By the time I showered and dressed and ate lunch, it was 1:30. Hm...pushing it a little for our errands, but we thought we could still make it.

WRONG!!!

We had planned to drive to the local Rite Aid to drop off my prescription for Flagyl (sadly the C diff returned in just a few days of finishing the last round of Flagyl), then to Seven Mile Market for some steaks for dinner last night, then back to Rite Aid to pick up the prescription, then home to put the meat in the fridge, then down to St. Agnes for my neulasta shot at 4, then back home as fast as possible to meet Lowell for our Thursday evening fun.

NOT!!!

None of that happened, except the neulasta shot. When we went out at 1:30, the snow was coming down harder than we had realized. One inch or less was predicted for our area, but it looked like we had a full inch already. The snow was pretty thickly falling, and another four hours of snow was predicted. Mark rummaged in the trunk to find our snow brush to clear the car. It was light and fluffy, so that was an easy chore. Nothing had been done to the local neighborhood streets, but I had no trouble driving over that inch of snow.

I got out of the neighborhood and turned left onto Charles Street. It looked just like the neighborhood streets, completely snow covered, and I could see that people were having a bit of trouble going up a hill farther down. I had no trouble, but I was starting to fear that I could not return to the house before going to St. Agnes. We decided to drop off the prescription, shop, and head straight to the hospital, picking up the prescription on the way back. That would make us a little late for Lowell, but we figured we'd call him later.

NOPE!! Didn't happen.

I got up the hill and turned right at the light at Cold Spring Lane. NOW things were going really horribly wrong. It was bumper to bumper and not moving. We inched along a bit and finally saw that there was a car stuck on the big hill going up the other side. This road is narrow, so it meant the oncoming traffic was coming down the big hill, passing the stuck car, and the cars on my side were taking turns now and then trying to go around the stuck car when they got a chance. Hm...eventually we saw that most people were abandoning this plan and either trying to make U-turns in the middle of the road or turning left down some other side street into a residential neighborhood. Finally I noticed that yet another car was not able to get up the hill. OK, it was now about 2:15. This five minute drive had now lasted 40. New plan, abandon Rite Aid and Seven Mile Market. Just try to get to the hospital before 4 when they close. I turned around in the Loyola College dorm parking lot, which fortunately had a traffic light. I was able to turn around, make a left to go back the way I had come. By then the radio had informed us that there were terrible slick spots and gridlock on all the ways I would normally have gone to the hospital. I had to go up the big hill I had just come down, but I was confident I could do that. There were two big SUVs in front of me. Suddenly, both of them were sliding and having trouble getting up the hill. The SUV farthest ahead actually had his passenger out pushing him. Both cars seemed to be behaving badly. I think they might have been inexperienced college students unused to driving in bad weather, but I have no proof. I still felt that my little Focus could easily go up that hill, so I drove right up the middle between the oncoming traffic and the two crazily skidding SUVs. I think Mark was having another heart attack, but I had no trouble at all getting right up that hill and past those other big SUVs. I was quite proud of myself and my Focus.


NEW PLAN!!

At the top of the hill, I turned right onto Charles Street and took my chances going down through the city on St. Paul. I took it to Chase, then the MLK to I-95. So did everyone else. Super gridlock. No streets had been treated, and to top this all off, schools had closed early and people were leaving work early. Effectively we had slick roads and rush hour traffic happening between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. About 3:50 we were very near the hospital. At that moment the nurse called my cell phone to ask if we were going to make it or not because they had had many people call them to say they couldn't get there. We were right alongside the hospital, so we made it!! I got in there at exactly 4 p.m. and I did get my neulasta shot. YAY! It only took two and a half hours to drive 9 miles.

CRAZY!!

The hospital has a pharmacy, so we were able to get my prescription filled right there and pick it up after the shot. Nice. We also got delicious sugar-free, fat-free hazelnut lattes at the coffee bar to fortify us for the long drive home. By now we had already called Lowell to advise him against coming to the house. It wasn't worth the risk for him to have to travel those bad roads to get to us. We also knew we wouldn't make it back in any kind of timely fashion. We also had no steaks to cook because we never got to Seven Mile Market. Fortunately there were TV dinners in the freezer.

The radio advised that the beltway was a parking lot all the way around and that the two possible exits I could use off the JFX to get back home were full of accidents due to the ice and the big hills. I decided to face the city gridlock and essentially go back the way I came. We left the hospital about 4:45 and made it home by 6:15. Obviously that was half the time it took to go down. By now the snow had almost stopped, less traffic was on the roads in the city, and the streets were starting to clear up. There was actual bare pavement in many places. Calvert Street to St Paul is an easy way north to Cindy's house, so that turned out to be a good choice last night.

When we got home, we were thankful to eat our salad and TV dinners and watch Big Bang Theory on TV. It had been an exhausting round trip to get the neulasta shot and the Flagyl.

OOPS!!

Once we got home, we realized we didn't have the Flagyl. UH? We searched the car, our pockets, my purse. NOPE, no Flagyl. We wracked our brains trying to think of what happened to it, and then we realized what must have occurred. There are some cozy chairs and tables in the lobby right outside the pharmacy. I was sitting in them, emailing Cindy about the change of dinner plans, sipping my latte, and waiting for Mark to get the prescription. When he came out with it, he put it on the table next to me to put his gloves on. I was telling him about Cindy's dinner decisions, putting my hat and gloves back on, and just generally talking away as I often do. Neither of us bothered to pick up that pharmacy bag off the table. AAAGGHHH!! No Flagyl for me last night.

GOOD NEWS!!

I decided to call the hospital pharmacy this morning as soon as they opened at 9 a.m. Fortunately the bag with the Flagyl in it had been discovered and turned into the pharmacist. YIPPEE!! It means another round trip to the hospital today, but I will be able to start this third course of Flagyl by this afternoon.

What a day yesterday was. Nothing went as anticipated except getting my neulasta shot, but that may have been the most important thing of all. We were safe and sound and so was the car, so that is all good. Right?

I expected to wake up this morning with joint pain in my hips and knees, like I did the Friday after the first Taxol, but so far, I have no pain at all. It would be lovely to escape that, but I'll just take it an hour at a time and hope for the best. Now I have to go shower, dress, and drive to the hospital to get the Flagyl. Sadly, the C Diff is very bad again. I'm starting to get quite concerned about it. If this third round of Flagyl does not work, then clearly the oncologist needs to do something different, maybe even refer me to a gastroenterologist or some other doctor to get more aggressive. I'm not sure what can be done, really. The more I read about C Diff the scary it gets, especially since it is not going away at all. I am going on two months now of fighting it.

Hopefully the drive down and back today will be uneventful. No snow is predicted for today, but it is bitter cold so nothing is melting. It's slick and icy out there, so they say. I'll let you know how our round trip to the hospital turns out today! Stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting episode of "Fun with Mark and Becky in Cancer Land."