Catching Up - Part 2

Let's see. On top of the whole freaking out about the weekend away and pet sitter and the panic attacks (Oh, the panic attacks!), my friend J's mom calls me on Friday, 4/25. She's hysterical. She's also mentally ill, so what you see isn't always what you get. She tells me that J is in the hospital in Hoboken being tested for leukemia or lymphoma. Now the thing is, because of the whole Boy Who Cried Wolf thing with her, I was like, yeah, ok, whatever. She said that J's phone doesn't work, so she can't call out, but she can receive calls and gives me the number. I call J and her mom wasn't overreacting. Fuck. She's terrified. She thought she had the flu and had gone to the ER because she had just moved back to NJ and didn't have a doctor out there yet. Which turned out to be a good thing because who know what would have happened to her if a regular doctor had ordered bloodwork and then sent her home for the weekend. Anyway, she went to the ER for the flu and they admitted her. She was so sick that the hematologist told her that if she hadn't gotten treatment, well, let's just say it wouldn't have been good. They finally diagnosed her on Monday (4/28) with leukemia and then worked on stabilizing her so that she could transfer here for treatment.

I was shocked. I was terrified. It didn't seem real. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to fly out to be with her, but she said that she was fine with just her mom there. Luckily her mom had taken a friend with her to lean on. I spent Friday through Tuesday just freaking out. Luckily, I had a Joan appointment on Tuesday and she knows J, so we talked. I felt a lot better. I was still panicky on Wednesday and Thursday, but not like before.

J got transferred to U of M on 5/1. I had gotten home from work and was exhausted. All day I had planned on just going home and putting on my jammies and lying on the couch. I called Boo when I got home and asked if he'd need a ride home. He said he didn't, so I told him it was jammie night and I was going to have beers. I had just changed into my jammies and then phone rang. It was J. She was freaking out. She'd been at U of M all day, doing paperwork, getting tests run, and had finally gotten to her room. She had called the guy that she was sort of seeing and wanted him to come and see her and he told her that he couldn't - he had to go to the gym and then probably to the bar. Nice. The best part is that this guy had leukemia as a child. What a gem. (He's since been kicked to the curb - Yay J!). Anyway, I headed to the hospital. And stayed there until she kicked me out at 11:30. It was a rough night. But I came away from it being just absolutely pissed. I wasn't sad and panicked and freaking out so much any more. I was worried as hell, but I was just (and still am!) pissed. WTF? Why her? She was just getting her life back together after spending the last year taking care of her ailing grandma and her crazy mom. She was back at her kick as job in NYC and loving it.

I loved her nurses and she was in the bone marrow ward until last week. And let me tell you, the bone marrow people rock! She started chemo (7 days, 24 hours a day) on 5/8 and finished on 5/15. They moved her to a plain old oncology ward last Wed (5/16). Which it totally ghetto. The rooms are creepy, it's darker. There are no sinks in the rooms! WTF? As a compulsive hand washer, that was quite a luxury. AND they don't have a lounge with a freezer full of popsicles and ice cream. You either have to go sneak it out of the bone marrow people's freezer or ask a surly nurse to get some for you. WTF? When my girl needs ice cream, I don't want to have to chase down some bee-otch to get it for me. OMG and the family lounge area is skunky. Ugh. It's nasty. Apparently blood cancers are the cleaner and less ghetto of the cancers? Whatever. I come home from the hospital and scrub myself with antibacterial soap. *shudders*

But she finished up chemo last Thursday. I went that night for a "Kick Chemo to the Curb" party. I took hard candy and soda. heh We watched the last drops from that ugly ass brown plastic IV bag run into her PICC line and then whooped it up. She had a terrible rash from the chemo and she has what they're calling thrush in her throat, but she said it's more like the chemo is killing the cells in her esaphogus quicker than they can regenerate so she has a sore throat bad enough to merit a morphine drip. As of today, she still has her hair, but she doesn't expect that to last much longer. All I can say is that cancer sucks. And I hate what it's doing to my friend. But her prognosis is good. The doctor said that she's young and it's much easier to tolerate the chemo when you're younger. This week (maybe next week? since the plan changes every day) she'll have another bone marrow biopsy to see where things are. The best case is that the chemo killed all the cancer cells and her marrow is regrowing in a healthy way. If not, it's another week of constant chemo. I hope that she doesn't have to do that again, but it sounds like most people do. In the meantime, we're praying and sending lots of positive healing thoughts her way. And I'm keeping her stocked with hard candy and soda.

There's way more details and ups and downs and I've learned so much about this horrible disease and it's horrible treatment, but that's the jist. It just sucks.