I had my blood counts done today in Mount Vernon and had to make a total of six phone calls to see that the results were faxed to my doctor at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. It's amazing that I had to do so much legwork to get follow up on a simple fax, especially since I talked to the nurses and made it absolutely clear that I needed that info to go to my doctor in Seattle pronto. Sheesh. It would be nice to have a little confidence in a medical establishment's follow-through once in awhile. This is the second time that they dropped the ball on me.

But, hey, I'm not going to complain too much. One of the assistants in Mount Vernon called me back (the sharp one) and offered to handle it herself. And she did. Hooray for competency!

Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day, as all of western Washington is under a winter storm advisory and we are expecting perhaps 4 to 6 inches of snow to fall sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Ee-gads!

I hope the storm holds off long enough for us to at least make it to Seattle for the treatment. If it snows while we're there, at least we can take our time miserably driving through the snow back home (or stay in Seattle?). We'll see what happens.

I'm taking a tin of Christmas cookies to Dr. Ellis and her staff, along with a card to let them know how much I appreciate them taking such good care of me and making the experience easier to get through. Everyone at Swedish has always been very helpful and in good spirits. It's nice to be surrounded by supportive, caring people when you're going through a scary, physically and emotionally draining time.

I won't get too weepy, though, because I will be back to see Dr. Ellis in a couple of months after my radiation treatments. She will be overseeing my hormonal therapy (I don't even want to think about that right now!).

For now, I'm grateful to be getting to the end of this phase of my treatment and looking forward to having a month of "normalcy" (not sure what that is anymore) before the next phase begins.

Please pray that this last one won't be too harsh. The third one took the stuffing out of me. At least, after the last treatment, I hope to have the psychological advantage of knowing I don't have to keep coming back for more.

I heard that one doctor compared chemo treatments to being punched in the nose. He said that the first time you're "hit," it's like, "Ouch!" Then the second time, you're saying, "Hey! That hurt!" Then when you're hit the third time in the same place again, you're reeling a bit: "Okay, this isn't funny anymore!" Not sure what happens on the fourth hit. Maybe you punch back before you keel over. :-)