Week 10, Days 1 & 2

Not much to say about Day 2, Thursday, except that as an alternative to naps (the first taken before noon), more exploration of how much sleep I could get in front of the big-screen TV in the living room. I had no energy for anything else.
Quite a bit of sleep, as it turned out, helped along by some seriously bland March Madness in the evening. The Purdue-Cincinnati basketball game, in which I had little interest to begin with (aside from my brother Tom being a Purdue alum), was a real snorer, since neither team seemed to have the will to prevail. By the time it went into overtime, I'd long stopped wondering which of them would.
More to say about Day 1, Wednesday, which was infusion day, and for my next to last chemo treatment at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, my main goal was avoiding pain.
No problem in the phlebotomy clinic (or "phleblotomy," as someone there was calling it). A bit of a problem a couple hours later in the chemo unit, however, where the nurse, Kim, graciously set us up in the best cubicle on the place, the big one with the two chairs and a bed that we enjoyed during the very first treatment two months ago. It turned out to be the best place for it, since health proxy Bill Finkelstein spent most of the next hour on two phones in the final throes of wrapping up the closing on the sale of his mother's place in Florida.
Meanwhile, Kim was having trouble finding an vein, especially after her first attempt in my chemo-afflicted left hand was unsuccessful. Her uncertainty after that was palpable. We asked if the nurse was on duty who found a vein a week earlier. Doreen. Doreen strode in, slapped my right inner forearm, spied a likely spot and hit it on the first stab. Did the doctor approve infusing the saline solution along with the Gemcitabine? No signature, just two red rubber stamps on a slip of paper that said I'd seen the doctor. Except I hadn't seen the doctor. Worked for the nurses. Worked for me. Just one more to go.