CHEMOTHERAPY-DAY ONE

I started chemotherapy to shrink the tumor at the junction of my stomach and esophagus. I was glad that Phil and Kim were there with me while I was connected to the various IV fluids. One of the drugs they gave me required me to be very well hydrated, so I started by taking in lots of fluids from the IV which goes via a needle into the port in my chest. I also drank about a gallon of water. I had to pee. When I dragged my tubes and IV pole across the small room, Phil got caught up in the tubing and accidentally pulled the needle out of my chest. Gitty, my fantastic nurse, was furious with Phil and shot him mean looks for the next hour. Luckily, she replaced the needle and the new set up worked better than the original. She and Phil made up. Not much later, we were trying to take a photo of all the water I was drinking and we knocked all the water over everything in the room. Thankfully Gitty wasn't there. It was a long day, but it was kind of fun. I'm on three different drugs to kill the cancer cells and two others that will help with the side effects. One of the drugs has to be pumped into me 24 hours a day, which requires me to wear a fanny pack with a pump that goes to my port (more on this in a later post). Afterwards, Phil and I watched American Idol and ate my new favorite ice cream, from Three Twins.

PRUNE

Georgia, Phil and I met at Prune before heading over to a party to celebrate the release of Meek's Cutoff. We started with anchovies with celery, broccoli rabe with mushrooms.
Whole Branzino with herbs.
Shad Roe, I'd never had this before. I like the texture.
For dessert we had Maple Walnut ice cream with maple syrup and chocolate pot de creme.

B&H DAIRY

B&H Dairy always a few different soups, my favorite is borscht. It comes with soft, buttered challah bread. I also like the egg salad.

M'AM

M'am, featuring former members of Das Damen, Guv'ner and Love Child rocked a packed house at Mercury Lounge last night. They were followed by one of my new favorites, Apex Manor. It was great to see a ton of old friends. Myrna's spinach quiche was for breakfast. I served it to myself on this cool plate from Kiosk.

PORTACATH

It sounds like the name of one of my favorite recording artists, but it's a plastic "port" and a tube that was put in a little below the collar bone that goes up to my jugular vein and then down into my heart. It will allow the doctors to inject medicine (chemotherapy) as directly as possible to my blood stream and avoid having to have tons of injections by needle. Before the procedure I had to fast and was given an IV, I experienced a vasovagel, I fainted. I nodded out in the chair, became dizzy, disoriented and sweaty. Kim was there with me. They stabilized me with fluids and we were ready to start the portacath insertion. Zach, the doctor asked if I wanted to hear music, so we listened to his friend's Israeli Blue Grass group Holler! Everything went fine except Zach accidently pricked his finger with one of the suture needles. This meant I had to have some blood drawn to have checked for disease, I fainted again. It was a sleaty, cold night in New York. Kim hailed us a cab back downtown to my apartment where she made me an avocado-coconut shake (from Samantha's recipe) using my new Waring commercial blender. We watched American Idol.

VEGETABLE STOCK

Thanks to those that have sent recipes for healthy soups and shakes. I tried a version of this one yesterday. Parsnips, carrots, potatoes, celery root, onions, tomato, garlic and a little rosemary cut up with some olive oil.

Roasted in the oven until things get golden.
Dumped all the vegetables in a pot of water, boiled and then simmered for two hours. (The hallway in my apartment building smelled good)
Strained out the vegetables and left with a rich broth.

SCANS AND BAGELS

I had some tests done this week to get more specific information about the tumor. One was an Endoscopic Ultrasound. It was fun. They knock you out and put a camera with an ultrasound device on the end of it down your throat. The other one wasn't fun. You drink a gross shake (see above) and then they shoot your veins with something that is radioactive, you sit for an hour, and then you go in the tube. Test results from both showed nothing worse than what I already knew, which was good news. Since Myrna, Goldie and Ellen were in town, I got some friends together to meet them. At Mindy's we had a classic bagel buffet: bagels from Murray's, baked salmon, lox and whitefish from Russ and Daughters.