The Second Treatment, in Pictures

Today was Rick's second BCG (Bacillum Calmette-Guerin) treatment, which is called an "instillation," at Dr. Lilly's office in Seattle.
For those of you who tuned in late, this is an immunotherapy treatment for bladder cancer. It was originally used as a vaccination to prevent tuberculosis, but was found to be useful in treating and preventing certain bladder cancers, or so the informational site I looked up says. No one really knows how or why it works.
He has four more treatments to go after this, every Friday until June 12, after which he'll have a break for a few weeks, then be checked again for signs of cancer in his bladder, and then there will be another go-round.
Today I took some pictures of the trip over, and here are my notes, and Rick's:
We leave the house early and catch the 7:15 a.m. Ferry, head into Seattle, go up Madison to the parking garage for Swedish-the Arnold Pavilion-Nordstrom Tower. Right after Rick gets out of the car in the parking garage, you can see he's feeling pretty upbeat, in a tense, dreading the treatment way.
Because we park on the third floor of the garage we can walk through the double doors, up three stairs, and from there to the sky bridge which extends from the garage to the Nordstrom Tower, with another sky bridge branching off in the middle that goes to Swedish Hospital. The sky bridge looks like it goes on forever, and it does. If you look at the ceiling you will note a certain unevenness. It dips down as you head west. I found myself thinking that I hope not to be there in an earthquake.
We turn right at the offramp – excuse me, hallway – that leads to the third floor elevators of the Arnold Pavilion Building, and then we go up, up, and away to Doc Lilly's office. Not that we'll see Doc Lilly today.
The reading material on the table in the waiting room is grim. I don't know if you can read the titles, but they are, left to right: Caring; Coping with Cancer; another copy of Caring; and Towing, all stacked on top of many copies of Highlights, the saccharin magazine for kids that I thought was drippy back in the 50s when I read it at Harry Ashcraft's dental office in Watsonville. It persists.
I'm not sure how the Towing magazine got in there. I mean, I'm not sure how cancer and towing are related, but I'll give it some thought now.
Because we came on the latest ferry that would get us there on time, we arrive 20 minutes early. The staff is talking and laughing, that early morning greeting and checking in that employees do in most workplaces first thing in the morning. Rick makes his usual contribution in the restroom – make no mistake, the urologist always wants your pee – and then joins me in the waiting room. We watch the fish tank, noting a little orange guy who seems to be looking for a way out.
After a while, Rick is called in for the treatment and I am left to wait. I decide to fill my idle moments by fluffing up his vest and my coat, placing them on the arm of the love seat I'm sitting on, and lying down.
Here's Rick's story of what happened while I was napping:
"Mary and I caught th 0715 boat to town for "instillation" #2 and were back on the island by 11. No need to see Doc Lilly for these procedures. The nurse who does the job is a young lady named Therese who lives in Southworth so she is a ferry rider, too. She has plenty of opinions about Vashon residents and none of them are good. they get in her way when she's trying to catch a boat, they cut her off in the ferry line, make her miss boats, and are rude and opinionated. I could only sympathize since I have the same feelings for the newbies who have moved out here and cause the same trouble when we're just trying to get around. They have a distinct sense of entitlement which we old-timers are particularly critical of because we, of course, have never behaved in such offensive ways ourselves. (--and if you believe that, I have a couple of bridges in New York I'd like to sell you)
"Now I'm sitting around and waiting to start feeling like crap, which shouldn't take long. Therese assured me, with no small sense of satisfaction, that the treatments become more uncomfortable each time. Maybe if we ever catch the same boat home with her we'll try to cut in front of her accidentally."
(back to Mary)
If it was me, I've have some doubts about a person with this attitude sticking a plastic hose up my wee-wee to fill my bladder with a caustic bacterial liquid, but as you see, Rick rose to the occasion with his usual grace and flair, and he also said that the instillation itself was not painful today.
After that we went back to the car and made the reverse trip from Seattle to the Fauntleroy ferry, making a short stop at the California Avenue McDonald's for coffee when we realized we were going to miss the 9:25 a.m. ferry. We sat on the dock and drank our coffee, caught the 10:20, and headed for home.
I took a picture of the ferry docking at Vashon, then turned and took a picture of Rick sitting next to me in the car. You can tell he doesn't feel as good after the treatment as he did before, which is exactly what he was told to expect. He has also been told to hold the bacteria in for two hours, no more, and when he lets it out, he is supposed to put two cups of bleach into the toilet and let it sit for 20 minutes to kill off the bacteria before flushing it, so it won't have an opportunity to enter any public septic tanks or sewer systems.
It takes us about two hours to get home from the appointment, so that works out well. He'll take the rest of today to recover from the effects of the bacterial stew, and probably tomorrow and Sunday as well. As I type he is feeling feverish, a burning in the bladder, and, as predicted, crappy.
Four more instillations to go, but it's all part of the process, which will go on for quite a while. This is what we're learning about this cancer: it can be treated, but the treatment process will get tedious and go on for a long time. Talking to other people with cancer, and spouses of people with cancer, I'm learning that this is the norm. You're psychologically done before you're physically done. Someone remind me of this in a few months. Thanks.