My second dose of chemo therapy is now in the rear view mirror and as hard as I try to stay positive and upbeat around the family & friends, I have to tell you, it is a nasty bitch at best. There is really nothing redeeming about it that comes to mind.
My treatments come every three weeks and there will be from six to ten of them depending on some future tests I'm really looking forward to. It is a six day process to get through but only two of the days are really bad.
The Oncology unit where I get the chemo is a large place. A lot people have cancer. They administer chemo to dozens of us hollow eyed, bald headed thumb suckers every day. We sit there with our tubes and pumps for hours at a time, each of us in a different stage of treating a different cancer. The young ones are the most heart wrenching but there are many beautiful old lives fighting the battle as well. Graduates never attend reunions I am told.
Day one is just some blood work so it is just a trip to the phlebotomist and a quick needle to tap a few viles of blood.
Day two ended up being five hours on the barkolounger this time. The first one took about eight hours but this time they were able to speed up the infusion pump & I got out in less time. It is unbelievable the amount of pills and all the different bags and syringes of nastiness they pump into you. It makes your urine toxic for about a week so there are some simple bathroom duties I have to perform so as to insure no one coming into the bathroom behind me should get into contact with anything that could hurt them. Also one of the drugs administered decomposes human tissue pretty rapidly if it comes into contact with open tissue. It has to be shot into the vein and directly into the blood stream only. They are very careful with this one and have some special little tests to make sure they are all good. The nasty mouth soars and nose bleeds are a result of this drug, infections are to be avoided at all cost I am told. I just hope none of you ever have to go through it.
Day three is a spinal injection, fun deal. Chemo into the spinal fluid takes three different departments working together to perform the deed. The first time after they got the needle into my spine there was a 45 minute wait for a Dr. from Oncology to come over and administer the shot. In the mean time a wave of nausea came over me like a freight train so I broke out into a sweat, called for a bucket, & cut loose right there in their operating room with a needle hanging out of my back. The Dr. in attendance was quite animated I must say. I had quite a reaction on him and I'm sure there were some fun time discussions afterwards as to why it took so long etc. So this last time it only took about an hour all in all start to finish. And no nausea.
Days four through six I self administer a rather strong steroid on my own. It really amps me up while I am on it so if you need your garage cleaned out I am taking reservations.
So I am on day four of the second dose now. It's not so bad, I can sit up and write about it. I was hoping I could get a couple days of work in this week and I might go in this afternoon but I'm feeling pretty poor right now. The idea of the chemo is to poison the cancer but it ends up poisoning every cell in your body & all your parts scream out in protest and pain.
C'mon parts, hang in there babies.
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