Today was a day that seemed so far off....I secretly dreaded but am actually glad to have started so we can get this thing going' and over with. Very nervous. Wondered what the poke of the port would feel like as well as the chemo in my body, or how I would feel after and over the next few days.
Appointment time was 10:45 a.m. My neighbor Lori "my chemo buddy" drove me. I was prepared with drinks, reading materials, movie etc. I was very interested in distracting myself. In the chemo room at Southdale Medical Oncology Clinic is a semi- circle of lazy boys with regular chairs for our guests. Looks like chemo patients are the guests of honor. It was a busy morning. Waited just a bit before they hooked my port up. Felt a little needle poke and it was done. Not so bad. They drew blood and we waited. After a while, the nurse came over to go over the chemo medications and what to expect. We are going with what is called TCH. These chemo drugs are called Taxotere, Carboplatin, and Herceptin. I will now go in for 6 total rounds of chemo once every 3 weeks, with time in between treatments to build up my white blood cell counts. That means more time to build my immune system in between which apparently will be shot. That will be interesting with 2 kids and a husband. We are determined to be careful and are training our kids. Randy has stocked us with face masks and hand sanitizer to keep germs to a minimum.
Anyway, so we began the chemo session. First they start me with an anti-nausea medication which is such a blessing and has come a long way in helping chemo patients fight horrible nausea. Then they administered benadryl in order to offset any allergic reactions to medication. Once that kicked in, I was a bit woozy and tired. So much for my reading and movie idea. I put my warm blankie (which they provide) over me and nodded off for about 45 minutes.
I was Ok throughout the rest and was able to watch a Craig Ferguson comedy routine on my ipad. At one point I was laughing so hard the nurses had to come over to see what the co-motion was about. Randy stopped in over his lunch hour (which was great) to see if I needed anything but left after a half hour.
One thing my doctors did mention about my therapy which I felt as a positive was that my HER2 positive cancer, which means I have a fast acting cancer, responds very well to the cure that the Herceptin drug provides. I will come in for the Herceptin drug every 3 weeks for one year. We have the best team of doctors around and feel so much caring and confidence in their treatment plan for me.
Total time was 5.5 hours which seemed a bit long (we were expecting 4 hrs). Guess my body seems to respond well to poisonous chemo meds being injected into it to kill cancer. But I know I need to keep myself as healthy and rested as possibly to fight this. I did not love today's experience but it was not so bad. Anticipation may always be worse. One down and 5 to go. That doesn't sound so awful. Thank you to everyone for your concern and prayers. Sometimes I still cannot believe this is happening. But we are a going' now. Love you all.
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