This morning was my first of 16 chemo treatments at Diablo Valley Oncology over the next 5 months...sounds a little daunting, doesn't it? Well, fortunately it was a breeze...I can only hope the remaining 15 go as well. When we first arrived they showed us to our "infusion suite"; a little cubicle-like room with a comfy lazy-boy chair and a medical pole/stand which holds the bags of medicines. There was also a chair for Harun but his was not quite as comfortable as mine. The nurse (another wonderful woman, by the way) took my temperature and my blood pressure, and then brought me a nice warm blankie and reclined my chair to make me comfortable. Kinda like being on vacation. Well, sort of.
Kaval (the nurse) explained to me what type of "cocktail" I was going to be getting today. I was to receive 5 different drugs...all administered separately via the port on my chest which I got put in last week. The medicines are all feed through an IV drip into the port. It's a little bit painful when they hook the tube to the port, then after that you don't feel a thing. Once the medicines start flowing in you can relax because the drugs are doing their work and you just sit back and read or chat or do a crossword (which is what I did today). The cancer drugs are given last. First, she was going to administer two anti-nausea medicines into my port (10 or 15 minutes to drain each bag). Secondly, she was going to give me an anti-anxiety drug called Emend (woo hoo! I LIKE that one!) which took another 10 minutes or so. It made me feel HAPPY. I said to Harun, "We gotta stop buying Chardonnay and just invest in some of this Emend stuff!" Hee hee! Thirdly, I got Cytoxan (that's one of the heavy-hitter cancer drugs). It's administered a little differently...it's not in a bag like the others. The nurse has three big syringes of the stuff and she shoots it into the tube instead of letting it drip. She said this is done to insure that it goes into my bloodstream instead of my tissues. Kind of crazy because it looks exactly like red coolaid...I jokingly asked her if she was sure she was using the right stuff! For the next day or two I will be peeing pink as a result of this infusion. The last drug was Adriamycin; the second of the heavy hitters. A side affect of the Adriamycin infusion is that it makes your nose itcy and I was sneezing a little bit. Weird. To top off this crazy medicine cocktail, they have me a bit of saline in the IV to "flush it all down"...is that supposed to be like a chaser drink? Not sure.
Anyhoo, I'm resting now at home. So far, so good. I feel a little loopy and sleepy but definitely not sick at all. I suppose the next day or two or three will be the real test as to how my body tolerates the drugs. I am hoping to feel well enough to attend all the family festivities on the 4th of July (one of my favorite holidays) but we'll see. Thank you again to all of you who are praying and thinking happy thoughts for me. I feel your strength and love, I really do.
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