the grammar of chemo

The new chemo room: except for the roominess, the IV poles and the large size of the dusty mauve recliners, you get the feeling of being on a budget airline, with the nurses coming around to bring drinks and crackers, and nowhere to go for several hours.
Of course, the nurses also bring around various bags to hang on the IV. As my nurse hooked me up, she said, "This is a heavier than usual dose of Gemcitabine. Of course, you aren't on the protocol, but you're following it." Of course. As a trained foreign language person, I realized that we were in one of those Who's on First situations, and sure enough, it took several exchanges for her to make it clear that first, a protocol is a clinical trial, where they try out the newest drugs or regimens, second that I couldn't actually take part in the D-H's latest and best clinical trial because of my previous cancer, but third, I'm really on it because I'm getting the same treatment as the people they're counting, but I'm only following it because the researchers won't be able to use my results. It doesn't make a difference for me.
This is either a phase III or IV clinical trial, by the way, which means that they've established that the drug regimen is safe and at least as effective as what they have already. Phase III is when they check a relatively small group to see how much more effective, and phase IV is when the protocol is being sold and used and they're catching any problems in the larger population.
The drugs I'm getting right now are gemcitabine and taxotere; try http://gemcitabine.com/ and http://taxotere.com/ for info. Next chemo is on April 7.
We played Scrabble (ask me who won, ask me -- going out on a 7-letter word on a triple word score), and I knitted on a sock. Another advantage of the port is that I'm less likely to knit the IV tube into the pattern. We snacked and talked to a few people.
I slept most of the afternoon, felt a little queasy in the evening, took one of the pills, and wore my acupressure bands all night, but today I'm fine. It isn't exactly a walk in the park for either of us, but I don't feel like I'm trying to climb Everest, either.