Search This Blog

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

You are going to put WHAT....... WHERE????

Chemotherapy. Yup going for Chemo............
The injection of poisons in my body to kill what was trying to kill me.  Who wouldn't be scared at that though.
I think mostly just scared of the unkown. No one knows how you will feel from the Chemotherapy, No one knows what side effects you will have and no one can tell you what will happen to you. It was like i was waiting to be sent to the electric chair, I may as well have been waiting for that moment for all I knew.

Everything I knew about Chemotherapy was watching my own mother go through it. More that once. Seeing how sick she got from it was what scared me. I knew I did not want to be incapacitated to my bathroom for 12 hours a day laying on the floor and vomiting every time i moved. That was ALL I knew about Chemo. The idea of bald started to set in a bit, We knew that was a given, no one that had this type of Chemo had escaped with their hair still in their head ( I was bound to prove them wrong though)
So I was set for that, but the thought of not being able to take care of myself let alone my family scared the H E DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS  out of me.

I dont think i slept well that day before Chemo. I was to anxious, At that time i have never heard of the drug called Ativan. I faithfully believe that a Cancer diagnosis should come with a prescription for Ativan and a case of wine. Had I known this I would have been fully prepared by being fully out of it.

Finally getting into that Chemotherapy room, was intimidating. In fact, they were expecting me... there was already a chair waiting for me with my name on it ready to go......... YIKES.. Like seriously, were they looking forward to me getting injected with poison?

This was where I first encountered ATIVAN!  It was the kind that goes under your tongue. Within a few minutes I started to feel that anxiety leave................ oh heaven! It was awesome.
getting poked was not so awesome, although I must say that the Nurses that work in the Chemo room are fantabulous! They really try hard to do this with no pain getting poked at all.
This was when I started to get really really nervous even with the Ativan.
do they read you your last rites when they throw that poison into you? is there some sort of disclaimer that they have to read you? No pomp and circumstance here, SHEESH! They gave me a bag of Benadryl first and some gravol too, then it was on to the first of 3 types of Chemo

My protocol was FEC T. 3 treatments of FEC ( Florouracil 5-FU, Epirubicin AKA The Red Devil and Cyclophosphamide) and 3 treatments of Taxotere

My first 3 treatments took about 5 hours to do, they had to slow my infusions down a bit so it took a bit longer. all was find until it was time for the Epirubicin to go in, It is called the Red Devil for a reason. Its freaking RED! And I mean read as in Cherry Jello, Raspberry Ice Crystal Light, or Hawaian Punch. ALL of which I could not even stomach the sight of until recently, I could TASTE the chemo in it every time I ate it.
The Nurse comes over to me in basically a Biohazard jump suit, OK. So she has to be biohazarded up and yet they are INJECTING THAT INTO ME??????? What is wrong with this picture?
PANIC PANIC PANIC!!  ALERT ALERT ALERT!!
Now this Chemo is injected slowly while the nurse times it, It is hazardous to your skin if it touches y our skin , you can get a chemical burn from it the nurse tells me.. this does not assure me it is good for me at all.

After she pushed that through and got me set up for the C portion of my Chemo, I had to pee bad! All that saline they pump into you has to go somewhere i suppose. SO Off to the bathroom I go pulling my little friend the IV pole with me.
After I pee I go to flush and what do I see?? BRIGHT ORANGE RED URINE!! Seriously, this cant be good. I come rushing out and the nurse sees the panic on my face and chuckles a bit, " oh by the way I forgot to tell you that the |Epirubicin will change the color of your urine for a while" GEE thanks for the warning I thought I was dying yet again..........

We finally get out of the Chemo Clinic  at 5 pm, I was the last one to get unhooked and sent home. I was not sure how to feel at this time, I was woozy from the Ativan, Cocktail of drugs and the relief of so far surviving my first Chemo.
They sent me home with prescriptions of Zofran, and amazing anti-nauseant and Dexemethesone a steroid that helps relieve nausea and make the chemo work better.

All I wanted to do was go home and sleep for the next year till i was done all of this.
I had a few visitors that night, they did tell me at Chemo that about 6 hours later I would start to feel nauseated and stuff, and BAM, 6 hours later right on the nose i started to feel not so hot, My dad and step mom were over and I had to go to bed, I tool Gravol, Zofran and the DEX and went to bed. with that I actually slept till the next morning. Manny had to head off to work that next morning and my
super super AMAZING friend Suzanne Sera came to pick up Liberty that morning, It was a good thing we had that planned, I could barely get out of bed to get her ready. I wanted to lay on the cool cool floor of my bathroom for hours. The thought of food was already making me want to vomit.

I went to bed and watched movies all day, not eating a thing. drinking minimally. Those drugs do a great job of not making me vomit, but the nausea only took a break for an hour or so at most that day.

The first 2 weeks after that first chemo were not as bad as I thought they would be,
I had less and less nausea as the days went on and actually got out of the house a bit to enjoy some nice weather.
then I woke up one day and I was not ready for what was laying on my pillow.....................


" This is no time for ease and comfort. it is time to dare and endure"
Winston Churchill

No comments:

Post a Comment