Round Two!

Monday, September 16, I got my second round of chemo. 

As you can see, I was super excited to get my second round under way. They prepared my port and hooked me up...all very exciting stuff.

Bailey came! My sister came for my second round, and this time I actually got my chemo.

I love my sister! She kept me laughing and having fun all day. All four of us played games.

We are such goof balls!

Had to also get a pic with my lovely mom...but my dad doesn't like to be left out so that's his hand, and my sister got really tired after the last picture. :)

In hopes to help me feel better, I got fluids the next day (Tuesday), so they left the needle in me over night. This is a picture I took of me at home. They kept it all nice and covered. 

I slept through the fluids the next day, and afterwards, since I was starting to loose my hair, my dad took me to Figleaf in Community North. Figleaf is a store in the hospital that sells hats and scarfs. He got me two scarfs, a brown hat, a blue bonnet, and a grey turban. On Monday we decided to have my shaving party on Thursday. We decided this because it is quite distressing to always be pulling out long strands of hair. With it shaved down only very short hairs would be falling out...just little fuzzies. 

My Weekend Before Round Two

Due to the low counts and change of Chemo dates, I got to have a wonderful weekend.

September 13-15
Friday I went to school, left early for a second neupogen shot (what boosts my white blood cell count), and then I spent my evening with my friend Brooklyn. I met Brooklyn while working at Dairy Queen (we worked together). We also have Economics together...though I'm sure the rest of the class wishes we didn't. It feels like we are constantly laughing and having fun in that class. Any who, we went to Panera bread for dinner and followed it with some ice cream at Sundae's (where I also happened to run into some family). We talked for over 4 hours alone just at Panera and Sundae's, and then we spent another hour at Coffee House (a youth group function). It was tons of fun, and I really had fun getting to know her better.

Saturday was just a normal day. Sunday was another full day, with an interesting new discovery. When I woke up, I realized I had started to loose my hair. When I would run my hands through my hair, I would pull back a large amount of hair. It was nerve racking, and I was not as ready for this change as I had thought. I began to wish it would stay in my head, but of course I knew that wouldn't happen. But life goes on, and so did my day. I went to church, and then went for lunch at the Strayers. We hung out and then ate panini's...it was fun stuff. Then I went and picked up my friend Kiara and we went back to my house for a Scandal marathon...a show we discovered one day and have forever been hooked. All in all it was an eventful day.

My friend Kiara who, on the way to my house, had fun leaving some photos on my phone.

For those of you who've been asking:
http://instagram.com/mohantwotta (this is my instagram-- my name is mohantwotta courtesy of a nickname given to me by my best friend Sarah.)

Fun Foto's

This is the Stadium Night I went to see. I really love the bad!

Took this picture on my last day at Dairy Queen. Don't you just love the uniform!

After sushi on sunday (two weeks ago), Ireland, Clara, and I went to Sundae's ice-cream. It was a lot of fun, and it felt good to feel good and get out of the house.

This was taken on my I-thought-I-was-having-chemo-but-turns-out-I-didn't day. Bailey stayed with me anyways. Thanks for coming then and today sissy. Love you!

Thank You's -- Pictures

Thank you Mrs. Sue for the wonderful goodies that came in this bag.

Thanks sissy (Bailey), Kristen (A.K.A Khills), Faith, and grandpa and grandma for the awesome gifts and the beautifully wrapped box.

Thank you Caroline and Mrs. Townsend for the fantastic knit Chemo caps. I have started to loose more and more hair, so it could be any day now that I am needing to wear these. :)

Thanks sissy for the encouragement jar full of verses and encouraging songs (especially the one showing). I love it!

These are the Morgan Strong bracelets that my dad's co-workers made for me and my family. The top says MorganStrong and the inside has the Bible Verse Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

These are the beautiful flowers that my neighbor Ms. Becky kindly got for me. They are so bright and happy and just what I want to see when I walk into the kitchen. I absolutely love getting flowers and I really love these!

Labor Day Photos

While at the ER for my cough, I got  my own room.

This is me getting ready for my fist CAT/CT scan. The warm feeling that the dye gave me is still burned in my memory.

Pictures of My First Round of Chemo

I am ready for chemo! The numbing cream is on my port area and I am anxious to get going!

These two ladies are the wonderful nurses that helped me through my first round. They were a God send; so nice, so patient, so amazing. In this picture they are spraying a freeze spray (a.k.a. nurse Ethyl) on my port site before they stick it for the first time. Don't I look deceivingly happy about the impending stick. :)

I've been stuck with the special needle for the first time.

This is a close up. Isn't the nice red blood a good color next to the yellow needle "top" and blue shirt?!

Thanks Claire Strayer for the wonderful, soft blanket. It was so comforting, and I loved having it with me for my first round.

This is one of the types of chemo I have. I think it's interesting that the bags of chemo say to handle with gloves, yet it's ok to put it inside of me. Interesting, no?

This is a front view of one of my lovely nurses, and a picture of the fantastic machine that regulate the flow of chemo.

This is a front view of Beth, another of the wonderful nurses that helped me.

This type of chemo was given to me by hand. Beth injected the liquid into the tubes slowly, and it was so cool to watch the clear liquid go dark red, then light red, the dark red again whenever she gave a little push. You can kind-of see the transformation in this picture.

Port Surgery Photos

 This is the room at IU North that I stayed in.

This is a look at the fancy room I stayed in. There was a TV, a toilet, and a desk plus it was very roomy. It was very nice!

A lovely nurse looking for a vein to put my IV in. She tried in this spot first, but, thanks to my lovely veins, it didn't work. She had to take it out and move on to another spot.

This is me all hooked up! I have my heart monitor on my finger and the IV in my forearm. She used an ultra sound to find this spot. 

 This is the doctor who performed the port placement. He was very nice, and he likes the bears!

 This is what the port looks like. The white "tail" is what goes into the vein, and the larger triangle part is what most people can see and feel.

 This is the needle that works with the port. The skinny, short, white tube is covering the needle.

This is me post surgery. I got to ride a wheel chair out to the car. It was my third wheel chair ride ever.

This is what my chest looked like a couple hours after the surgery. They used a glue over the incision cut and you can tell it started to bruise right away.

Pictures of the Tests I Needed Right After My Diagnosis

 This is me laying in a hospital bed in the ER at IU North after almost passing out from a blood draw. This is after they used an artery for the draw and had to wrap my arm up really tight. If you look hard you can see the blood on the bed, and you can see that my forearm is much darker than the top of my arm. 

 This is my fish friend! He likes to look at me and smiles nicely for the camera. He lives in a tank in the corner of the waiting room in the IU Central Indiana Cancer Center (where I get my chemo). I like to sit next to him while I wait. This is a picture from the first time I met him. It was when I for my PET/CT scan. I now try to sit by my friend every time I'm there. :)

This is my excited-for-a-PET/CT-scan face. We got to right up a lift to get into the trailer that held the PET/CT scan machine.

They told me I was temporarily radioactive and that I shouldn't stand around little kids or babies. This is  what happens when you tell your tech savvy father that information...he creates a picture like this. 

This is me getting an ultra sound of my heart!

This is me getting my lungs tested. I had to do a series of breathing tests into this tube.

Excision Biopsy Pictures

My neck before surgery.

 I'm all ready for surgery. I have my IV in my hand, two gowns on, hair net in, and a smile on my face!

 Post surgery! This was taken right before I left, so I am dressed and the IV has been taken out. I got a nice ice bag to help the swelling.

 These were the two lovely bracelets that I got to wear. The red allergy one is because of my allergy to  -cillins (such as amoxicillin).

 This is how my neck looked, with the dressing over the excision site, for two weeks after the surgery.

This is after the bandage came off. The scar isn't too bad!

Building Pictures

Building where I got my needle Biopsy done.

This is the IU North building where Dr. Morgan works most of the time. This is the Hospital where I went to the ER on Labor Day.

This is where I go for Chemotherapy on Thursday's, where Dr. Morgan works on Thursday's, and where I got my PET/CT scan.