2/9/21 

Today is Tuesday.  My first chemo day.  I had my chemo bag and was ready to do this.  When I got to the cancer center, I realized I'd left my filled water bottle in the refrigerator.  Well, poop.  Turns out, they had water bottles there, anyway.  Ok, over the first potential hurdle.  When the nurse took a look at my port, she asked me when I'd gotten it.  I said yesterday afternoon.  She left and brought back another nurse, who looked at it.  They both left and brought back a third nurse (obviously the head honcho), and between the 3 of them, they decided to take a picture and call the doctor.  It was swollen and black and blue and they said there was a good chance I'd have to come back next week.  What?!?  Arrggghhh!  (That was inside my head).  I was already extremely nervous and sore and now was fixin' to cry.  They couldn't take a steri-strip off and risk infection.  I couldn't have surgical glue yesterday because I'm allergic to it and the surgeon said to keep the strips on for 10 days and don't get them wet.  The oncologist said to lift the middle one enough to get the needle in and go for it.  I couldn't have any numbing medicine on steri-strips, so she told me to take a deep breath, turn my head, and try and think of the name of my favorite song.  The head honcho nurse put the needle in.  The others wouldn't touch it.  Said it was too swollen and they were afraid they'd miss it.  Geez.  I really didn't need to hear that.  Yes, it hurt like Hell.  But not for very long, thank goodness.  I'm still pretty sore and it was uncomfortable all afternoon.  Next time I'm taking a Tylenol beforehand.  I was there for an hour before the drip got started, so poor David was sitting in the car all afternoon.  Again.  They wouldn't let him in today and we thought they were going to.  

They put in anti-nausea medicine for 20 minutes.  Then another anti-nausea medicine and steroids for 30 more minutes.  The Red Devil was next.  They put that in with a gigantic needle.  It doesn't drip from an IV.  The nurse pushes it in with the syringe for 8 minutes and watches me closely.  They had me chew on crushed ice the entire time.  I had to start a couple of minutes before she started injecting it and keep chewing for about 2 minutes after.  She said it would help with mouth sores.  Then comes the second chemo drug for another 1/2 hour in the drip.  Then they flushed it, pulled the needle out, put about 2 tons of pressure on my bruised and swollen port area to stop the bleeding, and bandaged me up again.  Ooooooh, that was fun.  After that, they put a little machine on the back of my right arm.  It has a battery in it and is about 2" x 1-1/2".  It beeped a countdown, got quiet, and then I heard a loud click and it injected me with another medicine to bring up my white blood count.  I leave this on till 8 p.m. tomorrow night and then take it off.  It will automatically inject me again tomorrow at 7 p.m.  Perhaps next time I'll know what to expect and won't jump out of my skin. 

I cannot see it without a mirror, so David is supposed to check it once in a while and make sure it's still flashing a green light.  No flashing light, no flippin' good.

I took my nausea medicine tonight and am trying to drink a lot.  My next door neighbor, Bonnie, brought over some stew, which I gobbled up.  I was asleep when she came and they didn't wake me up to even thank her.  Thanks, Bonnie!  I was famished and it was delightful.  I'm awfully tired - keep falling asleep sitting up on the couch.  My head doesn't feel like it belongs to me.  Like maybe I was abducted by aliens and they morphed into my brain.  I have a headache.  I wish they'd leave.  

They said I'd probably have symptoms for about 5 days and then be my normal self again till my next round of chemo.  They obviously don't know me very well, therefore, 'normal' could be misleading.

David waited in the car all afternoon and got me in the car around 4 p.m.  He's taking good care of me this evening.  I'm going to bed shortly.  Need     sleep      g'night.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  6/16/25 I’m back. By a show of hands, everyone that loves my charts, and patient portals, etc. raise those hands high! Hmmmm, I see none going up. I have sent messages on my patient portal on several occasions and heard nothing back. So, I call the office and leave a message, because you never get a real person the first time. No one calls me back. I think I might drive to the office tomorrow. ….. sigh. On a good note, my ctDNA test came back negative. Hooray! And I go back to MD Anderson in Houston in two months. I have an endoscopy in three weeks. I see my rheumatologist in two days. I need to get my dermatologist to take a look at my head. It’s been five weeks since she cut that open and it still has not healed. It’s still scabby and bloody. So, I still cannot get in the pool. And I have to stay out of the sun. It looks pretty icky on the top of my head, I’m sorry to say.  David and I celebrated my good news by going to Shreveport this past weekend. We had a good time. Th...
Read more
  5/12/2025 It’s been five months since I’ve written in my blog. Several people are upset with me for taking such a long break. However, my life just hasn’t been very exciting these past few months. I will appease the masses and update my blog today. David and I went on a seven day cruise in January and I continued with physical therapy twice a week for my back. David and I took a road trip in February and March. We drove thousands of miles and stopped in to see a lot of old friends along the way. We made it to Vegas and we got to see Garth Brooks in concert. That was a lot of fun. We kept going through Utah and Colorado and finally made our way back home. I cut almost 10 inches off of my hair in March. It was my first real haircut in years. I had another sleep study done and saw the pulmonologist several times. He wanted a special kind of sleep study so I went back for a third one. He ordered me another CPAP machine, but this one has a different mouthpiece and I sleep pretty well ...
Read more
12/10/25 Thursday First of all, good news. My latest cancer test came back negative.  I am currently in Las Vegas, supposedly having a grand time, but I am not. I got food poisoning and spent all day yesterday in bed. At least when I wasn’t vomiting or had diarrhea. All dang day. By evening, I was so weak I could barely walk. The hotel called paramedics and they took me to the ER. I was there until 11:30 PM last night. Poor David. I felt so sorry for him. It was a horrible evening and I’m still weak this morning. I haven’t eaten anything since Tuesday evening . We’re supposed to fly home tomorrow. I sure hope I’m better than this by then. I got show tickets for last night with spectacular seats and David had to take them back and get our money back. At least we got to go to the national finals rodeo Tuesday night. That was so much fun! Today doesn’t look like much fun, though. I feel horrible. They did a lot of scans at the hospital. Showed a lot of scarring in my right lung, which...
Read more