Chemo #1

First of all, can I say, thank God for wireless internet and a laptop. There's no way I'd be in the basement at the desk right now.

So the journey begins. One down, five to go. I didn't sleep well last night. The waiting is just really hard. We got to the doctor's office around 9. I met with a nurse and she had me take two of my prescriptions. One for nausea and a steroid to help prevent any adverse reactions to the medication. Then she had to start the IV in my port. I was really scared to have her stick the needle in my chest, especially after she confirmed it would hurt. It wasn't too bad though. They just used a cold numbing spray first and then it felt alot like getting a regular IV. Once it was in, she flushed it with saline and it was fine. She also took blood to check my blood counts.

I met with the doctor briefly and asked him to print me copies of my reports from my CT scan and bone scan. Then I moved to the chair to get started. They kept an open line for saline and then gave me an IV steroid and another anti-nausea drug. Next they "pushed" the Epirubicin (E). It was bright red and came in 5 big syringes. The nurse sat with me as she injected it into my IV. It took about 25 minutes. After a saline flush, they set up the Cytoxan (C) on an IV drip that took about 45 minutes. Last they "pushed" the 5-FU (F) and it took about 5 minutes. They did a final flush, unhooked me and sent me home.

I got home and took a two hour nap. My tummy feels weird. Not full blown nausea, but definately unsettled. I also feel very weak and a little achy. I just gave in at 5, to taking my first "as needed" naseau pill. I have some soup on the stove I'm going to try to eat and then plan on spending the rest of the evening on the couch watching the Thursday night line up.

I cried today. This was harder than I expected. I didn't expect to be so afraid of the port. It's also really weird to go from feeling completely fine in the morning to icky in the afternoon. I went in today and willingly let the doctors drip poison into my veins. I'm trying not to get too weepy, because I have a hint of a headache. Headache is one of the side effects on the list I'm supposed to report. I didn't think to ask today if I could take an Imitrex during a treatment cycle for my headache or if they will have something else. I think I'll wait and see if my head hurts tomorrow and give them a call.

Well, my pill has had it's 30 minutes to kick in, so I'm going to try to eat my soup and crackers before Eric gets back with Grace. I'll try update again tomorrow.