Immunotherapy: Session 1 of 6

at Akron Red Cross this morning

I had three dreams last night about missing this appointment. One I don't remember. One involved oversleeping (I woke at 10:10; my appointment was at 8). The third was a complicated story about my car--something was wrong with it--I went out to check--fussed around with a car that didn't seem to be our car but also did seem to be our car (it was an old Plymouth Duster, the first car Joyce and I bought after we were married--a car I'd been talking about the other day in the coffee shop). Anyway, by the time I got things straightened out (did I?), I was way late.

But I wasn't late this morning.

It took awhile to clean off the ice and snow from the car, but off we zoomed to the Akron Red Cross, 501 W. Market, where I would spend about four hours on a recliner, a needle in my right arm, a needle in the back of my left hand, blood flowing from my right into a machine that separated out the T-cells (and some other goodies), blood returning through my hand.

They had a hard time getting cooperative veins. (Here a poke, there a poke, everywhere a poke-poke!) But after about 30-40 minutes (I kid you not), the process was running merrily along.

We had been led to believe that I could read or write or whatever during the process. Not. I couldn't move either arm (though I did have to squeeze a ball, continually, with my right hand to urge the blood along). So--no checking of email, Facebookery, reading, etc.

Instead, I chatted some with Joyce and the nurses (when I felt like it--which was not all that often) and passed the time by silently reviewing some of the poems I've memorized. I did recite one aloud--"In Flanders Fields”—when one of the nurses told me she was Canadian. The poem was written by Canadian physician/poet John McCrae, WW I.

I was cold much of the time--though the nurses kept rotating warm blankets. Felt a little woozy at other times. And was glad my bladder behaved. (I know: TMI.)

Finally it was over, and I tottered my way to the men's room.

I had a couple of granola bars, sipped some coffee, and we chatted with the courier who had arrived to take my blood to Cleveland Hopkins Airport, where a jetliner would zoom away with my blood to Atlanta, where it will be super-charged with cancer-fighters; on Friday afternoon I will go up to UH in University Circle to get that Super Blood returned to me. (The courier told us he'd been delivering pizza when a courier service recruited him.)

And then we will see.

I will repeat this twice more, with a two-week rest in between each.

One annoying mess-up: my oncologist's office had not sent a blood-test result. Phone calls and faxes and emails ensued.

As we arrived back in Hudson, Joyce driving (Macho Man had wisely decided to be a passenger), I saw our house ahead of us. And I said, "That's the second best sight in the world!"

At that moment, the very best was driving.