Day Nine: One Tired Chicken

Wow, Day Nine already. We're on the homestretch now! Today was a relatively quiet day even considering the heightened activity of all the new arrivals. Somehow we both overslept and missed morning service, much to my dismay. I've really enjoyed sitting with Bruce and Vicky each day and praying with them. The services are held in the beautiful chapel down the hall from us, with Bruce singing and then holding a brief sermon while Vicky plays guitar. Afterward we just chat for a few minutes about whatever is on our minds and then begin our day. It's a refreshing start for both Krissy and I and seems to set our day out on a positive course. I felt bad about missing service today and Bruce only gave me a little grief about it, all in good natured fun of course. We also sat down to a breakfast of oatmeal and potatoes stewed in tomato and chili sauce and caught up on the conversations we missed at service. We were just like peas and carrots again.

Treatments were a bit rough on Krissy today. She was due to receive her laetrile, vitamin D and double dose of vitamin C today to round out the therapy before she gets a day off tomorrow. Unfortunately the vein in her left arm blew out during her first drip of vitamin D. This drip is painful to begin with as it hits her veins cold, but once it blew she was in agonizing pain. We weren't sure if this was just a more severe reaction to the treatment or something else until her hand and wrist started puffing up. We got the nurse to look at it and they pulled the catheter right away. Krissy's veins are still pretty constricted and it took them a while to find another good vein on her right arm to restart things with. Luckily they got a good one and she was able to complete all her treatments today with no further issues. They also removed the catheter and will let her heal up and rehydrate all day tomorrow before completing her therapies on Thursday and Friday morning. Until then she'll have to deal with a swollen and bruised left hand.

While we had some downtime with the several hours of IV drips I took a break and walked down to the local supermarket just down the street. We forgot to bring nail clippers and I was starting to look like I was in the early stages of lycanthropy. That's becoming a werewolf for all you non-Harry Potter folks. After I found what I needed I decided to browse around just to see what our Mexican friends are buying at the grocery store. It's pretty much the same stuff we have in the states, obviously with more beans and chilis, and some notable differences in familiar products. For instance, they sell Coke products but here you can get it in a THREE liter bottle. The thing looks like a submarine torpedo. You can also get eggs in a 36 pack. I kept trying to find the poor overworked chickens who have to fill up those gargantuan cartons. They also have a full blown liquor section, with hard stuff like tequila and whiskey, wines and 40oz bottles of beer. Must be popular on Sunday! In the end I passed on the junk food and pop and bought a bag of sunflower seeds with my nail clippers and walked a few laps around the block before heading back to our room.

When I returned Krissy was watching the American Network channel with just seems to play reruns of all kinds of shows over and over. Usually it's either Dr. Phil, Friends, Big Bang Theory or some random selection. Today we happened to catch an episode of the Paula Dean cooking show. And let me tell you, knowing what we do now and eating fairly well for over a week, this show totally grossed me out. Even before, I was baffled how this old lady could cook and eat the stuff she does without having cardiac arrest right there on camera. Today she made gigantic steaks topped with about three ounces of butter (yes, she buttered her steak), deep fried potato wedges, creamed spinach and chocolate covered cheesecake for dessert. I guess you could say the spinach was the healthy part of this dish except for the fact she made with about two pounds of butter and milk. The cheesecake wasn't totally decadent until she covered the plain fruit topping with another huge dollop of fudge. The sad thing is this is pretty much how we used to eat "before" but I can tell you, we'll never do it again even when Krissy is cancer free. Our country is #1 in the world for breast, ovarian and colon cancer specifically because we stuff our faces with too much red meat and sugar. Our bodies need protein and sugar but only in moderation. You don't even really need animal protein. Oh, and you shouldn't deep fry your sugar, that's probably not good for you either.

Krissy had her last dose of vitamin C so late that it pretty much killed her appetite once dinnertime had rolled around. We went down anyway to see who was there and so I could grab a plate. Tonight it was Oasis-style stirfry, mostly sprouts, broccoli and peas lightly cooked in olive oil with yellow rice. It was really good. Kris was only up for fruit so we joined the other members of our regular mealtime crew and started chatting. And, as is typical for this group, the conversation quickly ventured into loony territory and we were cracking ourselves up again. This time Jenny regaled us with a story about the gay flight attendant, who after hearing about Sharon's destination and her reason for traveling, had to take a personal moment to collect himself because he was so overcome with emotion. The girls enjoyed his company and hoped that he was also on their flight home. Then Krissy and Jenny were discussing how much they loved their gay friends which somehow led Jenny issuing this comment: "And we love our American friends too, they're almost as friendly as the homosexuals back home!" Boy, you give these Aussies an inch and they take a kilometer. I'm not sure what our trip would have been like without them, but it's sure been a lot more humorous with them here.

We had one pleasant surprise last night. Nicole, the young gal from a week ago who had to return home for a biopsy, emailed me last night and said they were doing well and almost ready to have the procedure done. She'll be getting the biopsy soon and then have to deal with some insurance issues, but can hopefully come back for treatment in the near future. This was great news, Nicole and her family are such great people and we've been praying for positive news for her.

Krissy is now winding down with Dirty Dancing on the tube, so I guess that's my queue to put on the headphones and either watch a movie on the laptop or read a book. I think she puts that movie on just to punish me sometimes. Tomorrow is the nutritional class we've been looking forward to for a week now, so I hope to blow your minds with stats, diagrams and daily nutritional values. Stay frosty my friends. G'night!