Chemo Number 1

Chemotherapy session number one was rescheduled to last Thursday (January 6th) at 2pm. I felt good all day leading up to the appointment. In fact, Eric and I went shopping in the morning and bought Brennan some snow pants. They are super cute, but I digress. We showed up on time for the appointment (me and my optimistic, loving and supportive husband of course), giggled in the waiting room (no recollection whatsoever as to what was so funny), and when our name was called we followed a friendly face back to the "port access room." I was all apologies for last week, but the nurse made me feel comfortable and assured me that last week just wasn't that memorable. I was sure that my vomiting episode the previous week would go down in the hospital's history books, but alas, I'm just not that special. What a relief! The nurse proceeded to put a 2 cm needle into my port. Now remember, the port is actually inside my body. To access it, the nurse simply sticks the needle through my skin into the port underneath. There's an incision line and a raised circular bump, so she knows exactly where to place her needle. Before she does this, she numbs the area with a cold spray, and I only feel a pin prick - nothing more. She takes a couple vials of blood, and then puts a 3 inch by 4 inch sticky, clear, plastic tape over the needle to hold it in place. We then go back to the waiting room.

What we learned later is that the vials of blood the nurse took have to be analyzed BEFORE the pharmacy will mix and send the medicine for my chemotherapy. My blood count must be at a certain level before the pharmacy will release the drugs to the nurse. The process takes about an hour, but after only a half hour in the waiting room, our name is called again. This time we meet with Cecilia; she's our injection nurse and will be our injection nurse for the duration of my treatment. Cecilia starts by attaching my IV and giving me Zofran through the IV. This is an anti-nausea medication. The same medication that she gave me the previous week when I was so sick. It was after the Zofran was hooked up that Eric and I broke out the box of Franco Mints that we had bought at Macy's while shopping earlier in the day for Cecilia and the other nurses and doctors. YUM!

When the chemotherapy drugs finally arrived, Cecilia had to dress up. Yes - dress up. She had a long gown with long sleeves and a high neck. She administers chemotherapy to 56 patients a week; the gown is to protect her from getting any of the drugs on her skin. Here's how the drugs are administered:

1. Bleomycin - Just for the first chemotherapy session, I was given a Bleomycin test syringe to make sure that I wasn't allergic to the drug. I had read how rare this allergy was, so I was able not to worry. This test syringe and most of the chemotherapy medication was administered as a "push." The injection nurse screws a syringe into the line connected to my port and simple squeezes or "pushes" the syringe until it's empty.
2. Adrianmycin - It's red and is also a push. It makes you pee pink or orange for the remainder of the day.
3. Velban - This is the one that makes you constipated and is a push as well.
4. Decarbazine - I believe that this was the IV that takes about 1 hour to drip into my body.
5. Bleomycin - Last was the Bleomycin which was also a push. Cecilia told us that the Bleomycin would be first in the future, but because we had to do the test syringe, we were given the drugs out of their normal order.

All in all, the chemotherapy drugs took 2 hours to administer. We were at the doctor's office for a total of 3 hours. I truly felt the same going into the office as I did leaving it. I felt fine all night albeit, I was awake most of the night. I told Cecilia the following day about my insomnia and she said that the Zofran had a steroid in it. That solved the mystery of the insomnia; next therapy session I will take some Adivan to help me sleep.

I've been fairly comfortable since Thursday. My stomach has done a flip flop here and there (I'm on three different antibiotics which don't help) and I've been sleeping more, but basicly I can't complain. I was told that day 3 after chemo was supposed to be the worst, but Eric and I ate a very large pizza Saturday, and felt AOK .... knock on wood. I know there will be days when I don't feel as good, so we've been very grateful for these healthy days. As my good friend Laura always tells me - If you feel good, don't fight it. Brilliant!!

The only setback we've had was on Saturday morning when I realized I was taking 10 pills a day. It scared me .... I'm the person who takes half a tylenol. I'm accepting the pill poppin, one day at a time for now. I'll let you know how that goes.

I actually spent a good amount of time shopping for a cranial prosthetic this weekend!! Lots of pictures to come!