I've debated on whether I would share this, but I feel like I should.
April 5, 2007 is the six year anniversary of my father passing away of cancer. He'd suffered for many years, first from skin cancer and then from lung cancer which eventually metastasized to his hip. I remember the last time I saw him before he had to be taken to the hospital because of the bone cancer.

It was his birthday, almost a month earlier. I had baked him a cake and driven it down from Baton Rouge. The reason this memory stands out in my mind is because I remember watching him force himself to eat a piece. The cancer and treatment for it tends to steal your appetite. I know this first hand. I watched him force himself to eat every bite, and it just had not occurred to me how much effort and determination that it had taken him.

Two weeks later, I got a call from my mom telling me that he was acting disoriented and unwell. He was admitted to the hospital that day. That was the end of it. The doctors started him on chemo, but the cancer was far too gone and they elected to stop. All treatment after that was palliative. He got pain meds to help him through and it got to the point that he didn't recognized anyone.

Since I've been in the hospital for round 5, two of my neighbors have died and one had to be taken to ICU. On my first night here, we ran into a woman in the family lounge who was talking about her daughter. She was not going to make it. I haven't heard anything more about her.

This round of chemo has been harder than the rest. I wonder if it has more to do with everything else going on. My attending physician also happened to be the head of Leukemia. He gave me the option of taking home a pump with the last of my chemo in it. I elected to do it. I'll get hooked up at midnight tonight and the bag will finish at midnight on Sunday. I'll have to come back to the hospital on Monday to have the pump disconnected, but at least I'll get one less day in the hospital.

It feels selfish to do, but I cannot take one more day of sitting in the hospital. I've been more nauseated this time around and the twenty-four hour drip of zofran hasn't helped. I've been getting a phenegran supplement every time the nausea gets too bad for me to deal with. It makes me feel like a zombie and I end up falling asleep for about two hours after the nurse starts the bag.

I'd much rather be curled up on the couch at the apartment miserable, than stuck here. I hope the rest of the weekend is less eventful.