205 East 64th Street

Today we spent 9 1/2 hours at the clinic. Well I should say Jimmy spent the 9 1/2 hours there. We left the apartment together to walk the 15 minutes to the clinic but I detoured with my brand new rolling cart full of laundry. It may seem that I do laundry all the time but it is nothing compared to back home. Up here I usually go to the laundromat once a week. While in there I met a native New Yorker. She must have been in her late 60's and was born here in Manhattan. She told me she has lived here all her life. Prior to coming to the laundromat she went to the pharmacy to purchase a thermometer. She was lamenting about the "new" digital thermometers. She wanted to buy the old glass mercury one and the clerk told her they don't sell them anymore. She talked about her grandson who is 18 and autistic. He lives with his mother and sister in Queens and she babysits him from time to time. We talked about her losing her cat recently and her Chihuahua before that. She also said she had a wolf shepherd mix years ago. She would like to get another pet but would have no one to look after it when she travels to her daughters house. Her clothes almost finished shortly after we started talking or it would have been nice to chat with her longer.

After the laundry was finished I wheeled back to the apartment, put the clothes away and made lunch to bring back to the clinic. I snapped a few pictures of a dog walker on my walk back to the clinic. The pooches are always so well behaved. I got back around 12:15 and Jim was still waiting in the general area. It is such a long day because they have to draw his blood first and wait for the results to come back. His blood counts have to be high enough before they begin the chemo. Also he has to wait to be seen by the nurse practitioner, Peggy. As it turned out his platelets today were only 50. The range is 160-400. Protocol for the clinical trial is to not give the chemotherapy if platelets were below 80. Peggy had to discuss this with one of the oncologist and they decided to go ahead and continue with the treatment. Let's hope today's chemo doesn't eat up the rest of his platelets. He was finally hooked up around 1:00. The first two IV drugs they give him are a steroid and an anti-nausea drug. Then he has to have an EKG done before they start the Romidepsin chemo. That infuses over 4 hours. When the Romi is finished he has another EKG. The last chemo given takes 30 minutes to infuse and then we get to go home.                                            On our walk home we stopped at Pizza Park so Jimmy could get a slice of pizza, whole wheat Margherita.

Tonight we will continue our series Breaking Bad. Woo Hoo Friday Night!