Day #1

We got the phone call around 11:30 that Andrew's room at the Upstate Hospital Hilton would be ready at 12:30. Really --- when we got to the room we thought we were in a resort. Brand new room to himself with all kinds of good stuff. The weighing, and measuring, testing and questioning began. Andrew's eyes got wide when our lovely nurse Kristen, showed him the pantry down the hall with all the goodies for anytime snacking -- ice cream, yogurt, juice cereal, pudding. One of the key objectives in this course of treatment is to keep you eating. ..

By 4:30 they had him settled in and hooked up to his first IV with fluids to "get the kidneys" going in preparation for chemo and strict orders to ring every time he peed so they could measure the amount.

(Sounds like there was a lot of peeing going on last night, all night long)

I left him to go feed and walk the dogs. When I arrived home our sweet girl dog Sophie was acting weird and didn't want to go walking. A quick inspection revealed she had ripped a golf ball size piece of fur out of her neck and it was raw and bleeding. Piled both dogs in the car (1-1/2 year old honey lab, Moe, and 10 year old Sophie) and head to the vet for a quick look-see. Turns out that cousin Georgies's dog Lucy HAD made contact in the little brouhaha they had at my father's house over the weekend and Soph had a gruesome puncture wound at the site that was filled in with hair so I couldn't see it. OUCH!!!

OK. So walk and administer drugs to dogs, leave them both, hoping that injured dog won't scratch her wound and healthy dog won't piss her off by licking it, and run back to hospital to check on the patient. Patient is now comfy in the PJs and expessing the correct attitude for the first round of chemo. . .

which arrived at approximately 11:30 that evening, thus starting the 96 hour marathon. Left him watching the Olympics, extremely disappointed that the hospital does not provide Fox Soccer Channel, with strict instructions to tape the UEFA cup soccer match that evening.

Thus ends Day #1.