The Yetti and Spaghetti

This morning Craig yelled that he thought he saw a Yetti in our bathroom trash.  I assured him that it was just the excessive amount of hair I had been losing.  His distressed look made me realize it was time to shave what remaining hair I had left. There is no infomercial snake-drain contraption that would be able to unclog our tub and sink without calling the Chicago sanitation department.  Craig's first attempt involved some type of pocket tool that ended up with something on the end resembling one of Monet's Haystacks!  He quickly looked in his phone contacts for anyone he knew in Illinois that might do sheep shearing.  

So we started our day, like many with Craig, out and about on an infamous urban hike.  I was happy to oblige this time as it will be better than hallway laps.  Given the recent Memorial Day, we wound our way around the river walk and visited the Vietnam Memorial, paying homage to my dad!  Love you Dad!  This was followed by the French Market (who knew) and some delightful gluten free crepes and macaroons!  We rounded out the walk with a brief visit to House of Blues and then found a Supercuts off the Magnificent Mile.  As I was sitting in the refreshing air conditioning trying to count the number of people who would witness the shearing, I began to get a little nervous.  Craig being Craig said, "Just a minute" and went out with his phone in hand.  He motioned for me to join him and I found myself half a block away in a small quiet salon with a wonderful Polish lady named Anna.  She cleared a spot for me immediately, shaved my head and didn't want to charge us.  We left a generous tip under her clippers...after all, it takes a lot of effort to shear this sheep.   We hope she has a strong vacuum!  Craig offered to shave his head with me, but I told him not to as I thought it might freak the kids out.  Especially Hickory.  People are already looking at me differently, so instead, he has volunteered to parade around the hospital in nothing but a patriotic speedo and cowboy boots...I think we've already had enough trouble with hospital security!

Then it was time to head to my PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line placement appointment.  Once again I found myself in interventional radiology with someone giving me a shot of lidocaine and saying, "You're going to feel a lot of pressure!".  They weren't lying!  WHOOO DOGGIE!  It's always comforting when the doctor comes in and looks like he's 14!  Does your mom know where you are?  Aren't their child labor laws in Illinois? Seriously?  I'm now a proud owner of a triple lumen IV to my upper right arm.  He described it as a long spaghetti noodle...I beg to differ.  This will really be my best friend in the coming days, as it will save me multiple IV sticks.

Tomorrow I check in to the hospital at 7:30am (no photos please,especially involving speedos) to begin this final phase of my treatment.  I will start five days of two different types of chemo and I'm scheduled to receive my stem cells (all 16.8 million of them) on June 2nd.  This is my "new" birthday.  Please pray that I will continue to avoid infections, complications, and that the nausea would be tolerable.

Today I'm thankful that hair is just hair and for a nice Polish lady named Anna, who made this day a little sweeter like lemonade and not sour like lemons.   (No offense to the wonderful LEMMON family!)  I'm thankful for all the current and former veterans who make my freedom possible!

Thank you all for your continued support and keeping up with my blog.

~Veronica