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Yesterday was my first day of chemo since mid-October. Fortunately, my cancer markers have been very stable and my February PET scan showed some small growths were becoming still smaller and only one was not, but it was metabolically less active.
However, last week the PET scan showed a more serious growth as well as a couple of new ones. So we scheduled chemotherapy, partly because one of the growths was causing me significant pain.
Now, I hate chemo so I asked if radiation or even surgery might work, but since several areas were found, we needed a systemic approach. And I agreed that the sooner we started, the better, because I wanted to catch the cancer early.
That gave me the best chance for an effective, and hopefully short, chemo treatment.
So, while I wasn’t thrilled, I scheduled the chemo.
I thought it would be like prior appointments, but it turned into a marathon.
My friend Judy (the lovely blue-eyed brunette in the photo above) came and got me at 9:45 for a 10:15 appointment. It’s super important that I have someone with me when I go for chemo because I will not be able to drive after, due to all the drugs they put in me.
Plus, these days I sometimes have mobility issues so it’s good to have a friend to hold on to, and I have a “go bag” that I can’t manage on my own that includes a comfy warm blankie a neighbor gave me when she found out I had cancer, the teas I like, and a warm vest, because the chemo room is usually cold.
Judy gladly carries both my purse and my bag, calling herself my sherpa, but yesterday I was able to manage my own bag. She also gets me water and tea while I get the infusion since I am hooked up to the chemo dispenser which includes an electric cord.
If I need to use the bathroom, she can help me unplug the cord, and the chemo banana bag on its pole will go with me, continuing to dispense the medication.
Unfortunately, nothing really went right.
The order of events is supposed to be:
- get the bloodwork
- talk to the nurse practitioner to discuss the results and make sure you are able to do chemo — if your electrolytes are off, they can add supplements to your treatment. If your blood counts are too low, they might refuse to do treatment until they are back in a safe range. They also test to make sure there are no signs of liver or kidney damage.
- After everything is check out, you go into the infusion room.
Well, yesterday (Monday, June 10th), first they couldn’t get a blood draw from my port because I hadn’t used it since October.
I knew I was supposed to get it flushed every few weeks if I wasn’t getting treatment. Normally I go in for a weekly blood draw regardless of treatment status and they would flush my port about once a month during those visits.
However, they neglected to do so the first couple of times I asked because apparently there were some infections showing up.
The infections cleared up but I never did get my port flushed. I just forgot about it after the first couple of refusals.
So the nurse tried several saline flushes, had me do “chair yoga” to try to “un gum up the port”, but none of it worked. So she added heparin, which can deal with blood clots but normally they are supposed to keep it in there for half an hour.
Which I didn’t think would be a problem, but because the various attempts at getting my port to work had taken so much time, they told me I’d need to go straight to chemo after the blood draw (via a vein).
I balked at this.
“No,” I said. “There is no way we do chemo until we know if it’s safe to do so and we won’t know until we have the results of the blood draw.”
They knew I was right, and so they rescheduled me to a different nurse.
However, all of this took up more time. I was already running late, but I figured, even with two chemicals (Taxol and Carboplantin) the infusions shouldn’t take more than 2 hours. I was so wrong.
First, I’d forgotten that the chemo drugs aren’t immediately there. They first give you all the other meds — the ones to prevent nausea, help with pain, etc. Then there will be another period while you wait for the drugs, which took another 10 minutes.
During this time, Judy took really good care of me.
However, she had thought we’d be out of there by 2pm so she’d scheduled an appointment for 3:30 and so I knew she was on a time crunch. She said it was OK, she would cancel her appointment, but when she called them to reschedule, she discovered it would be a long time.
So depending on how long my chemo would be, I’d need another ride home. She offered to text my boyfriend, and if he couldn’t make it, she knew the husband of my other friend in the picture above could do it.
It’s a good thing she got this arranged, because the chemo took much longer.
Because it was my first time in a long time, they started the infusion at a much lower drip rate. Instead of 2 hours, it took 4 1/2 hours. Including all the extra time up front, it truly felt like a chemo marathon.
Judy went to the cafeteria at the hospital across from Texas Oncology and got me a hummus veggie wrap and chocolate chip cookies at 1:00 since it looked like I would be there for a while. She also got herself a sandwich and chips and we had a little picnic before she had to leave.
She ran into my boyfriend coming in as she left, so I was never left alone for very long, which was nice, since the hospital staff are so busy. Plus it feels good to be emotionally supported at a time like this.
Finally, at 5:30 we were on our way home.
It was a LONG day.
However, it should also be the worst of these chemo sessions in terms of time.
In future, my port access should work, I will only need to take one drug (Carboplantin) and they will be able to run it at the normal drip rate — so the sessions should run about 2 hours, 3 in a worst case scenario.
Also, on a positive note — aside from nausea when I woke up this morning, so far my symptoms have been very manageable. I believe the prayers of friends and family for me helped.
My physical therapist came by this morning and I had enough energy to do our workout. This is really important while doing chemo, along with eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep.
So, overall, while chemo is never pleasant, yesterday’s session wasn’t too bad and today is much better than I anticipated.
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This post was previously published on Shefali O’Hara’s blog.
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Photo credit: Shefali O’Hara
The post My Chemo Marathon appeared first on The Good Men Project.