Today we had the pleasure of going from one appointment to the next. First, we met with "Michelle" at Dr. Svahn's office who will be my chemo nurse throughout the 5-month chemo process. She's cool. She went over all the drugs that will be administered during the 16-treatment regimine. The funny thing is, in your chemo drip you really only get ONE cancer-killing drug during treatment, mixed with a whole cocktail of approximately 5 other drugs to help combat the side effects from the ONE cancer-killing drug. Pretty interesting. These "helper" drugs assist in control things like nausea, constipation, anxiety, diarrhea. Like I said in a previous post, the first two months will be the most difficult of all (I go every two weeks) and then for three months I will go every week. A "frequent visitor", I will be. We got to tour the facility where they administer the chemo...it resembled an office with little cubicles, only in this case, each cubicle is an "administering station". Each has a huge, leather lazy-boy chair and then a small chair (for a visitor/helper, I assume) and a medicine stand where they hang the bag(s) of drugs you receive. They have portable DVD players and a nice selection of movies, books, magazines, etc. Basically I will sit in the lazy boy for approximately 90 minutes to receive the medicine. The nurses tell me that the time passes quicker if I bring a friend along. I am asking Harun to come with me for the first and second chemo treatments; but I might be looking for friends to take me from time to time so that I can give Harun relief. We'll see. They said depending on how my body reacts, I should probably have a driver lined up to take me to and from. It might be possible that I tolerate the drugs just fine and could drive myself, but only time will tell. My first treatment is Thursday, June 30th. I am nervous about it, but I'm adopting the Nike slogan, "JUST DO IT".
Our second appointment was with my cancer surgeon, Dr. Eigelberger. She said I was looking good, healing fine, and she gave me the thumbs up to drive the car and START RIDING MY BIKE AGAIN! Did you hear what I just said??? I was stunned. She said only flat rides and short rides at first, but that there was no reason to keep me off the bike. Yeah, Baby! I will see Dr. E again next week for an outpatient procedure where she will insert the VAP under my skin near my clavicle (I don't know exactly what VAP stands for, but essentially it is the port by which they give me the chemo drip). I am dreading yet another surgery but she assured me it is a "quickie" and over before I'll know it. The VAP is used as an alternative to having an IV inserted into my arm for each treatment.
I am still waiting anxiously for the day I can shower! Trust me, it's the little things you start to really miss...
The meals we have been receiving from folks have been AWESOME so I just gotta give a shout out to everyone who is helping feed my family! It has been such a blessing to have this help. I just got done eating a slice of homemade apple pie from my friend Angie...yum yum. My appetite has been improving greatly this week so it's been fun to eat what everybody has been bringing over. Thank you to all of you angels.
Also, compliments of my high school girlfriends, my house got thoroughly cleaned yesterday! Wow! What a special treat. My mother-in-law has been doing everything around here and it was awesome to give her the day off! The house is spotless and I am happy.
There have also been other angels who have been helping me with my kids...I won't mention your specific names, but you know who you are. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Tamara, I would be happy to come with you to any of your treatments. Please just let me know when you need someone, and I'd love to help you pass the time, and get you to and from safely.
ReplyDeleteMy mom went through a year of chemo being the in the hospital for a week at a time with chemo the whole week, and then 3 weeks off to recover at home. She did that for 12 months. We always made sure she had someone staying with her every night and it was a big comfort. Also, we were thrilled at how great the anti-nausea med's are nowadays. Out of all that time, she was only nauseous once.
You're in our prayers....and will do great!