I feel better today, but....Apparently one of the dangers of chemotherapy is the problems it creates in your going-to-the-bathroom schedule. I know; this isn't very kosher to talk about. But I have to worry about it, according to the papers I was given by Dr. W, because of the difficulty of keeping hydrated while having strange poisons flowing through my veins. So the pattern has been: first I couldn't go when I was supposed to, and now I'm going more than I'm supposed to. I have to count how many times I visit the bathroom so I know whether or not I should go in to the office to get fluid inserted into my port. So I'm waiting to see if I have to visit the bathroom again today and have results of the less than firm kind, then off to see the wizard!

I shall move to a nicer subject now. This is another "but". I feel great emotionally, mentally, whatever, but...My body is giving off faint signals of caution. My scalp feels sensitive to movement, as though it were a bobblehead that takes a couple of extra seconds to stop moving. Just below my ribcage, my stomach is giving off "pay attention to me" vibes, not full-blown nausea, but enough that I am aware of it all the time. Every now and then, a joint twinges slightly, as though it were shifting to find a more comfortable place. And weirdest of all, my eyeballs feel heavy, as though they'd added a layer to two of clothing and are having a tighter time squeezing into their sockets. And of course, I have a nice lump under my right collarbone, exactly where my bra strap and seatbelt are supposed to fit, that feels like it doesn't exactly belong to me. The Purple Port, you remember.

Alone, each of these things wouldn't bother me. Added up, it's like a fussing little refrain in my brain, running off to check on things, running back and wringing hands a bit, then rushing off again. It takes up space in my concentration.

Another thing is that I'm cold. My favorite thing to wear these days is my light blue shiny silky pajamas (from Saver's, which makes it better somehow) with my fuzzy lavender bathrobe over them, with socks and my pink slippers on. But today my hands are still cold, fingernails bluish, and so are my toes, and I'm even wearing my new knit beanie with tassel.

Mom took Nathaniel and me to see his ear specialist up north today. I was almost sure I could do it myself, but with all those caution signals, I thought I would pay attention and be cautious. Getting from the parking garage to the actual clinic is quite a journey. You have to walk to the entrance, then down a long hallway, then go up one floor in an elevator, then get lost while you try to remember which hallway you went down last time (five months ago), and then realize you should have gone the other way, then find yourself again in time to walk down about a mile-long corridor looking for Clinic #9. By the time you realize that you really do need a Little Girls' Room, there isn't one and so you keep walking, hoping there's one closer to where you're going, but there isn't. So you decide to wait until you actually arrive, and then you remember that there is one farther down past the clinic if you act like you're going into a completely different section of the place instead. You decide to have Mom wait in the clinic with Nathaniel while you pretend to know where you're going and you are incredibly relieved to find out you were right. There it is!

Nathaniel's appointment was a success. His prosthetic hearing bone still exists! His eardrum has no hole! He can swim! His hearing improved 15 points! You don't have to come back for a year, by which time they will have changed the long journey and you'll have forgotten where the close bathroom is. Oh well. Such is life.