February 26, 2009
When taking chemo medicine, you are on a 4 day cycle. So I think that that is how I will write this.
Day one - The day of Chemo.
We showed up at about 11am. We had just come from the hospital and I had a needle still sticking out of my power port, so it would be easier to start chemo. I chose a chemo chair (recliner) that had a couch and another chair beside it for my husband, Mom and Dad. The first thing they had to do was take some blood and check my blood counts to make sure I would be ready for the treatment. There were two other ladies there, older, bald, and by themselves. The first IV packet they gave me was called Emend. This was a anti-nausea medicine. It took about 30 minutes to run through. Then my nurse Jennifer (a wonderful woman) hooked me to a saline bag and let that run for about 3-4 minutes. Then she took two LARGE syringes of red drug (this is the actual chemo drug called Adriamycin. She does this as an IV push. I remember tasting and smelling some kind of alcohol, but that was about it. Jennifer told me that it would come out in my pee as well. Wow, I should really start taking all of these pee pictures, I will probably have peed the rainbow after it is all over.
When taking chemo medicine, you are on a 4 day cycle. So I think that that is how I will write this.
Day one - The day of Chemo.
We showed up at about 11am. We had just come from the hospital and I had a needle still sticking out of my power port, so it would be easier to start chemo. I chose a chemo chair (recliner) that had a couch and another chair beside it for my husband, Mom and Dad. The first thing they had to do was take some blood and check my blood counts to make sure I would be ready for the treatment. There were two other ladies there, older, bald, and by themselves. The first IV packet they gave me was called Emend. This was a anti-nausea medicine. It took about 30 minutes to run through. Then my nurse Jennifer (a wonderful woman) hooked me to a saline bag and let that run for about 3-4 minutes. Then she took two LARGE syringes of red drug (this is the actual chemo drug called Adriamycin. She does this as an IV push. I remember tasting and smelling some kind of alcohol, but that was about it. Jennifer told me that it would come out in my pee as well. Wow, I should really start taking all of these pee pictures, I will probably have peed the rainbow after it is all over.
After she was done pushing in both syringes. She injected the second chemo drug (Cytoxan) into the saline bag and just let that drip. After that dripped in, I had one more bag of anti-nauseau medicine and then she flushed out my port with hepparin. It was pretty simple and took about 3 hours all together. I felt pretty good, and Jennifer told me that I would probably not feel any nausea until Friday night. I made my next appointment for my neulasta shot (this is the shot that boosts my white blood cells) and then I made my appointment to meet with Dr. K the next week, and my next Chemo session (March 12th). We decided to leave and go get some lunch cause we didn't know how long it was going to be before I got nauseas (if I did).
We decided to go to Cheeburger, Cheeburger for lunch. I was still feeling good. Thank goodness I thought. I am going to be one of those lucky ones that don't get a lot of side effects (yeah for me). I ordered my lunch, my mom, dad, and husband ordered theirs, and as I was looking at the menu, it was like a 10 ton brick landed right on me.... You know when you go out drinking and you have a "good" drink that you cannot taste the alcohol in, so you drink too much? Then after you leave the bar, you go to a little dive to eat and it hits you all at once? THAT is exactly what happened. I started to have hot flashes, cold sweats, I left for the bathroom and ended up sitting on the floor, draping my body across the toilet. My Mom came in to check on me. I finally made it back out to the dining area, the rest of my burger (I was able to eat half before the melt down happend) was wrapped up and I was helped to Chris' truck.
I thought I was going to vomit all the way home. I just rode in the passanger seat, trying to keep everything down. When we got home, I went up to my room and laid down in the dark until dinner. I took the pills that I was suppose to take at 4pm. My 3 year old came to see me and told Chris that all she wanted to do was lay with Mommy. Her Mommy was tired and so was she. So she quietly laid beside me in the dark room until dinner was ready. Then she went down stairs to eat and when they were finished, made sure that I had dinner brought up to me (homemade chicken noodle soup). She fed me a couple of bites, but the nausea was so bad that is all I could eat. Chris brought all the girls in to say good night to me before they went to bed and about 8pm I called Dr. K. I had already taken all the anti-nausea stuff and the extra compazine as well. She told me that I had to REALLY eat bland and that crackers or rice should be the only think on my plate right now. I ate a few crackers, took another pill and found some energy to go down stairs and sit to watch TV for a few hours.
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