Two Hissy Fits in One Day

The Friday before Labor Day weekend, our school ran out of toilet paper for the ladies’ room. Since this problem was initiated through a supply order mistake due to mis-communication between the male head custodian and the male principal, it seemed that they should have fixed it. However, without going into the men’s room, I have a strong suspicion that they had plenty of toilet paper in there, and toilet paper for the ladies was low on their list. Given that there are probably 60 females on campus, the lack of toilet paper was disturbing. Being an old building with a strange format, there is one ladies’ toilet upstairs…no stalls, no cubicle, one toilet. There are maybe two others in a new addition, but I haven’t yet ventured out there. I believe some women probably use the little girls’ rooms, and others use the ladies in the annex. Oh, yes, there is one more accessible toilet downstairs in, of all places, the Health Office. The other office ladies use that one, but I’m not that brave. I suggested that the custodian at the very least provide some of the 3×3 scratchy squares that are standard use in the little girls’ restroom for the one toilet upstairs that many, many women use. He put some squares up there. I had to leave early Friday to get labs and visit my oncologist before my upcoming treatment on the following Tuesday, not to mention I had my first trip out of town for the weekend on my mind, so I forgot about toilet paper as I left the building. I started the day Tuesday in a depressed, crying, upset mood at the fact that I had had that great weekend get-away and now had to once again face a chemo treatment in the afternoon with a new drug and not sure what to expect. Oh, my doctor, he said it was an all-new regimen and that I would be fine. He gave me a prescription for a steroid to take starting the day of the treatment. The only thing he scared me about was when I told him I was going out of town for the first time. He asked what I was going to do if I ran a fever of 102. I did not respond. He said to go to an emergency room. I asked what they would do for me there. He said because I had a low white blood count a fever would indicate an infection and they would start me on an IV (of antibiotics) I guess. This put a damper on my high feelings about the weekend, but what could I do? He said my labs looked good, that my white blood count was low, but that it would be back up for the treatment on Tuesday afternoon. So, on Tuesday, I took my steroid pill and went off to school. Connie wanted to know why my face was all red, something I noticed before I left home. Tina said her dad had taken that steroid and had the red-face reaction, so that took care of that. Eventually, I went upstairs to use the rest room, and that’s when the first hissy fit started. There were about 10 scratchy squares sitting in a brown rapper on top of the toilet paper dispenser. I went downstairs and demanded to know why there was no toilet paper and why we weren’t sending someone out to get some…take a check, take the credit card, go now…no one else seemed to see the urgency in this problem. The head custodian simply got more squares for the restroom, said the real order would probably be in the next day; and I seemed to be the only one illogically put out by this inconvenience. Since it was my chemo day, I had to take a half-sick day to get to the Cancer Institute by 2:00. John, to be my chemo-buddy, was supposed to meet me at my place by 1:15. No show, no call. Sound familiar? You know about those apples that don’t fall far from the tree? Remember the non-ride home from the airport. I left him a message that I was leaving shortly, and off I went. Mona was my nurse. She did not get to me until 2:30. I said this was going to be an all new treatment to me, and she went to the computer to check my orders. She came back and said that I would not be receiving a treatment today, my white blood count was too low, and I would be getting a shot. That’s when the second hissy fit started. I used my strongest teacher voice, and said, “No, no, no. You don’t understand! I saw the doctor on Friday, and he said everything would be fine by today.” It didn’t matter to Mona. She could only see Friday’s labs, and she wouldn’t budge on the treatment. No offense to New Yorkers, but Mona is/was one, and she tells it like it is…You won’t die of cancer; you’ll die of no immune system. She wanted me to do labs, and then if everything was all right go ahead with the treatment. I refused since it would take at least an hour for lab results, and then the chemo, and I had a class at UNLV that evening. I asked to speak to Susan, the doctor’s nurse. I reiterated to her that it’s all a lie about fitting in your chemo treatments around your schedule…that I had taken a half-day off for this and now was not going to receive it. I asked, “Isn’t the doctor THE MAN? Doesn’t he know what he’s doing? He said I would be fine for the treatment today!” I talked about how little control a cancer patient has over one’s own life, and how the little control one has…setting of appointments, etc. should go according to plan. She was steadfast. By the lab results from Friday, there would be no treatment today, unless I did labs again. Finally, I had to have blood drawn with the intent that if the labs were good, I would come back the next day for the treatment late in the afternoon so I wouldn’t have to take another half-sick day. Within an hour of my getting home, Susan the nurse called and said that the labs were “beautiful.” Once again I repeated that we should have followed the doctor’s orders, but it didn’t matter by then anyway. The next day when I went to school and got to my office, the first thing I saw when I opened my door was a roll of toilet paper on my desk. There was a note from Tina that said, “I’ve got your back…end.” I’m so glad somebody besides Connie gets me there. One hissy fit solved; the toilet paper order came in, and the ladies room was once again in business, no pun intended. Next hissy fit solved…I went to chemo that afternoon.

A Great Weekend Out of Town…

The quick two-day trip to visit Teresa and Elliott in their new home went great! Three women with similar genes traveling together could be interesting, but Susan, Krista, and I made it through. Susan was intent on not checking her bag, and Krista and I planned to check our bags. This was not a really big deal, but a low-lying theme that ran through our airport activities. I probably didn’t really have to check my bag since a lot of 3-ounce plus liquids that women carry, I don’t need along on a trip…shampoo, conditioner, mousse, hair spray. I just didn’t want to mess with taking my bag all the way to the plane, storing it above, etc. So, Krista and I checked; and Susan did not. We had a harrowing ride to the airport with Joe driving us. He reads highway signs along the way instead of looking ahead at stopped traffic at red lights so he had to stop on a dime at the Russell light. Susan had been giving him driving advice all along…usually my job, but I was happy to concede to her. At one point a whole carton of cigarettes on the dash went flying with each and very pack falling out. Krista said it was pretty amazing that I don’t even flinch during these episodes. What’s the point? The flight was good. Susan had drink tickets, so we started off our day at 9:00 a.m. with Bloody Marys…Hmmm. Teresa and Elliott picked us up at the San Jose airport. We had a very long day, visiting their home, office, town, and lunch at a possible wedding site. We checked into our hotel rooms and then headed for a BART ride to San Francisco to see Beach Blanket Babylon. It was probably 10:00 when we got back to the hotel so we were all pretty beat. Susan and Krista were roomies; I had my own room. The next morning when I opened my door, I saw newspapers up and down the hall but not one in front of my door or my daughters’ next door. To make a long story short, Susan stole my newspaper. She didn’t take one from across the hall or anywhere else; she took mine. She based this decision on an episode from the day before when reading a local CA paper, I handed it back and said I didn’t know anyone in the paper. However, earlier that day, we had commented on how we both had read the local paper before we went to the airport. Anyway, Susan interpreted my comment about the Pleasanton paper to mean that I wouldn’t be interested in the San Francisco Sunday Times. So, finally, guilt-ridden, I took a paper from across the hall, only to find out that my own daughter had taken mine. We had a good rest of the day, out for breakfast and then on to a huge mall in San Jose. Eventually, Teresa, Krista, Elliott, and I went to a movie at the mall, while Susan continued to shop. Soon, it was time to go back to the airport. An all-consuming man across the aisle from us, one row back, did not turn off his Blue Tooth after public address warnings so I turned him in to the flight attendant, and she made him turn it off. It takes all kinds, and he was a pain, completely engrossed in his own world of whatever seemingly importance he places himself in the realm of things. Everyone else could turn off their electronic equipment, but he was above the rest of us. Susan found a way to get out of a trip back down Russell with her father driving and arranged to have her husband and son pick her up. Of course, she didn’t check her bag so she could boogie right out of the airport. She had talked to her dad earlier and made the arrangement that we would call him on his cell phone when we had our bags and then he would leave for the airport, five minutes from where we live. So, Krista and I got our bags, and I dialed his number. I often refer to Joe as the unreachable man, and this held true once again. My calls, Krista’s calls to his cell phone or to the home phone went unanswered. We got a cab. Fortunately, I had an extra key to our door and one to get in a side gate, since I didn’t bring my remote for the car gate. Go figure, shouldn’t I have known? In the house, I told Krista to try calling her dad from the home number; maybe he’d recognize that we were home by then. I guess he finally heard that call and realized we were no longer at the airport. Where was the designated driver? He says he went to the airport, looked up what carousel our luggage would be on, and sat down to play slot machines. It was so loud when we were getting our baggage, I’m sure he wouldn’t have heard a siren going off. So, other than our ride to the airport, and our non-ride home from the airport, our trip was perfect. With all that’s happened to me in the last few months, it felt good to be a normal person on a short holiday trip.