Wednesday at work I ran around and saw some patients and then changed into a tshirt and workout shorts. It's always interesting to do the reverse Clark Kent at work. It's fun to then walk back through the halls to get to my appointments and get many a confused look and the occasional "Are you going running?"
The clinic was packed with people and their families and everyone was in a chatty mood. Usually in the oncology waiting room there are a couple of people who like to compare what therapies they are on and what they have for cancers. On Wednesday everyone wanted to talk. When I moved into the smaller waiting room for blood draws, it was packed. I was the youngest person in there by 30 years-which meant everyone wanted to talk to me. However, in the blood draw waiting room the topic of discussion was Aaron Hernandez and they were all interested on my take on it. Our waiting room consensus was that the proper word for the situation was "a waste". This conversation seemed especially poignant to me because here you had a group of people who had either fought and won or were in the process of fighting to extend there lives. You betcha the agreement was "a waste" and it made everyone a touch mad.
After making new friends and giving more urine and 6 tubes of blood (more good luck with the left arm veins, they are making a comeback!) I had a brief physical exam where we discussed my good looking blood work and the results of my MUGA (heart) scan. My first scan gave me an ejection fraction of 78%, which the Nurse Practitioner told me she has never seen-in a good way. My oncologist said that it was super excellent. The results of my second scan 3 months later revealed the my ejection fraction was now 69%, which is still super excellent (usually it's 50-65%). My oncologist explained that these tests aren't calibrated to test the super excellent hearts and she did not think the vaccines were effecting my heart. She and the NP told me not to worry. The NP told me I didn't need to run more because I in my sarcastic manner told her that it was probably from missing 3 weeks of cardio. I assured her I had no plans to work out more.
After all of that I was deemed perfectly healthy are ready to get injected! Yay more sharp objects poking me in the name of science. This time the nurse who does my injections brought in the other research nurse so in case she was sick or on vacation there would be a back up. I assured the new nurse that I had yet to hit the nurse injecting me and she need not fear. She paused and looked at me for a minute, and then got on board with the sense of humor. She especially got the sense of humor as one of the injections was particularly painful and burned a little bit longer than all of the previous injections. This injection site would turn out to be the biggest sweller of the bunch.
Over the past 2 days the 4 spots have swollen a significant more than before and been a little sore. Also earlier and larger than previous was the onset of INDURATION. Induration is the hardening and thickening of the skin. Yes, it is as pretty as it sounds. Now for the study I was given an induration bullseye which I previously did not have to use and laughed with the research nurse at the size of the bullseye because it goes up to 10 cm. 10 cm a piece which would be pretty hard because my 4 shots would then have to overlap each other because my thigh is just not that big. I wore shorts into work because I wanted to share with the research nurse my 5 cm in diameter hot big hard bumps on my thigh. (Painting a pretty picture...). She confirmed that it was induration and finds it equally fascinating that the reactions seem to be getting larger, as a cumulative effect. Hopefully, they don't get 10 cm large!
The ladies in the office looked at my splotchy leg and were concerned. I explained that it was in the name of science! One of my colleagues looked at me and said "Yes, but your testing it on your body".
SCIENCE!
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