A leisurely day at Club Sunnyside

It is day two of my current stay at Club Sunnyside. Doses one and two of HiDAC* chemotherapy have been administered. That went well. The condo where Jill stayed last time has not been available, because our dear, generous friends who lent it to us have been staying there this week. In truth, they invited Jill to stay in one of the guest rooms with them, but they had extended family there with them, and it seemed like we would be intruding, in spite of their protestations to the contrary. 

Because we chose not to stay in the condo the night before my hospital admission, scheduled for 7:45AM yesterday, we had to leave home around 6:15AM, (good thing we are early risers by nature), which caused a departure from our usual routine of a leisurely cup of coffee and catching up on email, but it was not a difficult change. We arrived in plenty of time and were admitted at 7:45. 

Unfortunately, because the hospital is experiencing high occupancy right now, due to a surge in Covid19 cases and a shortage of personnel due to vaccine mandates, our room was not ready until about an hour after we checked in. Jill had been very concerned about being in public spaces where exposure to potential infection would be greater, so this delay was hard on her emotions. 

When, at last, we were given the green light to go to our room, we were delighted to learn that it was room 455 where I had stayed during my month-long initial stay. It seemed even more like coming home than our last visit, when we were assigned room 453, which is a clone of 455, but in a noisier area. 

We had been so excited to return and show off our new "Club Sunnyside" tee shirts that we had made for this visit. When we walked into the oncology unit...there was no one to greet us and see how clever we are. We were, of course, hoping for oohs and aahs over our tee shirts. We have had to point them out to this busy, busy, staff, who, thank God, are more interested in my care than in what I wear. It just goes to show that trying to draw attention to oneself is liable to backfire. (Yes, Lord, we got the message.) Our disappointment has been mitigated by the smiles of those who have either noticed or been shown our folly!

Because HiDAC chemotherapy involves administering two doses of medication on days one, three and five of my stay, today was a day off. My next dose isn't until 5PM tomorrow. That left us a day full of promise. We had a lovely walk around the campus this morning, in spite of a deteriorating air quality index due to wildfire smoke. It was nice to relax in the Zen garden again. 

After our walk, we had a visit from the Nurse Practitioner, who said my case continues to be boring with everything going well. She plans to discharge me on Monday morning. 

After Kari's visit, we settled in to watch the church service we missed on Sunday, due to our ER visit. Our dear friend Bob Sloan, a retired pastor who was the guest speaker, was preaching on prayer. It was an inspiring sermon, and we were so glad we were able to download it from the church website. If you are interested, you can find it here: https://www.dallaschurch.org/rhythms.html. The sermon starts at about 8:38 min into the service. 

After lunch, we read several chapters of our Louise Penny mystery titled The Cruelest Month. We love reading to each other, and Penny's stories are well written and entertaining. Oddly enough they all take place in a tiny hamlet in Quebec, Canada, called Three Pines. In the three books we have read, all of the murders have been linked to the "old Hadley house," a creepy old place on a hill. This village I imagine to have a population of a couple hundred at most. That's a lot of murders in such a tiny town. 

I had a nap and then it was time for Jill to hit the road to Dallas. She had a blessedly easy commute, filled the tank on the car for tomorrow's drive and arrived home in time to have a leisurely dinner. 

I suppose that to many people this would sound like an unremarkable day. When going through leukemia treatment and several rounds of HiDAC, that's just the way we like 'em. We thank God every day for His faithfulness in allowing my body to respond well to the treatments, for the medical knowledge He has revealed to mankind and for His promise never to leave us nor forsake us and to be with us until the end of the age. 

* HiDAC (High Dose Aar-C) is a Chemotherapy Regimen for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)


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