well, i am happy to report that i managed to survive round one of chemo with no puking involved. i went to walmart the morning of the first session and bought a bucket...just in case. better to be prepared, right. my oncologist was very nice and liberal with the nausea medications, so i was able to kind of formulate my own cocktail to take something to ward off any problems about every 4 hours....i guess i did learn something working for hospice for a year and a half :)
the main adjustment has been just being tired a lot more, and it can come on very suddenly. i have been off work the last 2 weeks unsure of how i would feel, so that has been nice....boring at times, but nice. i hope to go back in for a couple of hours each day this next week...only to get hit again by the next round on friday...6 days from now.
to share a little bit about the whole experience....they have a "chemo room" at the doctors office where everyone goes to recieve their infusions/medicatoins. it is a large room with about 15-18 recliners in a big semicircle around a nurses station. the chemo nurses are all really nice, and give each patient the standard instructions/drug information before each round is started. the RN asked me if she had heard correctly that i was a pharmacist, and after my answer apologized that the information would be rather basic. i told her that was fine with me...as far as i am concerned, i am a patient in there, not a health professional. i guess they used to have a TV in the room, but there used to be to many arguments over whether to watch Maury or Springer so they had to take it out....whatever. people can bring in whatever to read or listen to if they want. you can even take your laptop and watch a movie if you want. my treatment takes about 2 hours each time, but there are some folks that are there for 12 hours....WOW.
one thing i did think was interesting was part of the "sex" talk they give you. of course condoms are highly recommended...it is not really a great idea to get pregnant when you are getting chemotherapy, as you may imagine...no telling what would happen. what surprised me was that the RN staff basically told me that if a patient does get pregnant, they would stongly counsel the patient to have an abortion. i don't want to get started on any such discussion on this blog, but i just thought that was interesting. i don't exactly have anything to worry about at this time in my life, but i still got the "lecture".
the hardest thing emotionally i have had to deal with this last week was waiting for my hair to start falling out. the doctor told me it would be about 14 days....and it was 13.5. sitting watching CSI on thursday, i first noticed it. i knew it was coming, actually it had kept me awake a couple of nights this week thinking and wondering about it.
i don't really consider myself high maintenance, and it was not the fact that i would lose my hair and be bald....actually with the medication i am on, it is practically completely hairless...even eye brows and eye lashes. anyway, it was not that i will look different, it is more about the fact that this means i am really sick, and i will have a constant reminder of that. i have had 3 surgeries with 7 scars since june, and one of them included implanting this plastic disk under my skin that is raised up and visible on my upper chest....but these are all covered and unnoticable most of the time. now, with no hair, it meant i have a constant reminder that something is physically not quite right. it kind of represents the last bit of being "normal" i have being gone. at least that is how i have felt.
anyway, i thought i was preparing myself for it, but as a friend of mine who went thru chemo as a young teenager told me, until it happens, you can't really know how you will react. she was right. i didn't freak out right away, but i did sleep in one of my baseball caps all night. the thought of waking up to hair all over my pillow was too stressful. i even skipped the shower the next morning before i went to meet my hairstylist. shampooing up and having clumps come out was not an option. Julie, my stylist, is awesome, she met me at the shop on her day off. she shampooed my hair, and then we took out the clippers. she shaved it off to a nice short buzz cut as i sat there with a few tears flowing...but in a matter of minutes, all the length was gone. we decided to stop there for now, she needed a new blade for her clippers and did not want to risk slicing my head open. she told me at the first sign of any patches to call her, and we would do the rest. at first i was not so sure, i thought it would be easier to have it all gone at once, but i am glad we are doing it in "steps". it is still weird, but i am adjusting.
well, that is it for now.... like i said, i have another treatment on this coming friday, the 23rd. but my anxiety is much lower going into this one...i at least have a comparison now.
chat more later....
in HIM.
anne
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