The Merits of the Case

When I said I had a date with nurses and needles in my last post, I wasn’t too far off the mark.

I’m writing this post while sitting in my spring-green vinyl recliner in the chemo room at my doctor’s office while hooked up to an IV pole full of drugs. There’s a basket sitting next to me full of the drugs still to come. My roommates are a woman who is about ten years older than me with a full head of long blond hair and an elderly woman with dainty, bird-like features and pink cheeks wearing a bright pink baseball cap, a lavender sweat suit and no hair. My third companion is another woman who is about fifteen or twenty years older than me wearing a red blouse, glasses and a light brown wig. (I can’t see her very well because she’s around a corner across the room, but I think it might be her last treatment.) The room is L-shaped, with the tall part of the L approximately 10’ wide x 20’ long and the short part of the L about 10’ wide x 15’ long. Every available bit of space in the room is filled with recliners just like mine, eight or nine in all, each accompanied by a small white bedside table and several IV poles and pumps.

The previous paragraph is as far as I got in my Chemo: Day One narrative, because I spent the rest of the appointment talking with my amazing nurse, Patty. Patty greeted Randy and I when we arrived, accessed my port, and was in charge of the administration of all those drugs while I was there. (The room was so small and crowded that I urged Randy to leave once I was hooked up and to return when I was finished, and he did.)

Most of the chemo drugs are administered via an IV bag, but the Adriamycin is administered by the nurses themselves using a very large syringe. It takes 8-10 minutes for them to pump it into us through an IV line, so they sit next to us on a stool while they do it. Patty sat next to me while she was administering the Adriamycin, and then stayed while the Cytoxan was administered as well. I was happy about that because we had a great conversation and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to her. We discussed everything from our kids (she has four) and their driving to wigs and Wisconsin and blogs. (I told her I was going to write about her here and gave her the address so she could check it out.) Talking with her made the time fly and I found that I was actually disappointed when it was time to go. (I will take my camera next time to get pictures of Patty and of the chemo room so you can see what it looks like.)

Just as WhyMommy observed last week at her first chemo appointment, when I first arrived I felt like the new girl at school. I didn’t really know anyone there, I didn’t know where to sit or what to expect, and it was all a little intimidating. The nurses and the other patients were all kind and friendly, however, and thanks to them I quickly felt at ease.

After Patty accessed my port (which was completely painless), she gave me saline, an anti-nausea med and a steroid, followed by the bright red Adriamycin (it looks just like cherry Kool-Aid) and the Cytoxan. She described everything she was doing before she did it and reviewed all the possible side-effects of each medicine. The whole process was quite painless and relatively easy.

Lucky me, I did have one side-effect while I was receiving the Cytoxan that she had forgotten to mention. At first when my sinuses began to feel clogged and to burn a little bit, I thought maybe it was my imagination. It kept getting worse, and in addition it felt like water was coming out of my ears (kind of like after you go swimming). I finally mentioned it to Patty and she told me that only one in ten women experience that particular side-effect and that it only lasts while they are receiving the Cytoxan. I hope that doesn’t mean that I’ll be experiencing other rare side-effects. I don’t want to be that special!

I’m home now, drinking lots of water (to flush the Cytoxan out of my system in order to fend off potential bladder damage) and resting. I’m actually feeling okay right now, although I’m a little tired. I think that’s just from being hyped up about all of this more than anything else. Patty said that I will probably experience insomnia tonight (an effect of the steroid) and that I will still feel pretty good tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday will be the days when I might feel really exhausted and possibly nauseous. I’ve got my fingers crossed that these anti-nausea medications do their job.

Tomorrow I have to return to the doctor’s office for a Neulasta injection. This injection will help my bone marrow and white blood cells recover so that my body will be ready for the next treatment in a couple of weeks.

The good news is that the first treatment is over. I’m no longer nervous about that part of it. The big unknown now is which side-effects I will experience, but that mystery will probably be cleared up in short order.