Well today I was given my first chemotherapy session. The Nurse looking after me is a really nice older lady who's been working there for 11 years. She was very helpful and answered all our questions.
So how does it go ? I hear you ask, well first you take a seat, then the nurse comes around and put a cannula in your vein as the drugs will be dispatched intravenously. If your veins go bad then they'll have to put in a permanent fixture into my arm but my nurse said that my veins appeared good so hopefully it shouldn't be necessary.
Firstly they hook you up with some saline followed by an anti-nauseous agent called Novoban, I was also given some Maxolon ( anti-nauseous also) in tablet form for home should the need arise.
Then prior to the actual drugs being injected there was some serious cross checking with another nurse to make sure that I am receiving the correct drugs and dosage.
The first drug ( Doxorubicin ) was injected manually through a plastic syringe connected to the main line, it had a bright lolly red colour that affected my first couple of pees afterwards. This only took about ten minutes and apart from a cold sensation, it certainly was not painful.
Mesna a drug to protect my kidneys and bladder was given shortly after and this was then followed with Ifosfamide which took about two hours to go through.
I was given some Mesna in tablet form to take at two intervals today as well. All in all, we arrived at 9am and left at 1pm.
Halfway through my treatment I felt kind of high, by 2pm I felt mildly nauseated and by 6, I felt like I'd just woke up with a massive hangover, we had dinner at 7pm and it got progressively better after that.
Tomorrow I'll be starting at 8.30am and should be in there for a bit longer as the drug regimen will slightly different.
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- Alex
- Diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer on Friday the 28th of March 2008, this blog is about my ups and downs, some random thoughts and dealing with the many challenges ahead.
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3 comments:
I've been wondering how you went today. Sounds like you bore up well.
I also thought of one more thing you might like to get - although you may be on top of this one already, too. Feelgood DVDs! Escapism from the comfort, privacy and quarantine of your own home (and/or chemo centre, depending on whether you have a laptop and they let you use it). I've never had chemo, but I know these helped me recover from a few minor ops.
Really I just want to wish you all the best for tomorrow. A good night's rest to you in the meantime.
Bea
Seriously, not that you owe us anything, but hearing the details like this make me understand it a bit better. Words like chemo have associations with it, but they're so vague in my head. I don't know if you can truly understand until you're in it, but certainly reading this gave shape to some pretty cloudy ideas.
Sending a lot of strength for the next days and the weeks after.
Chemo is nothing exciting, I mean receiving the treatment is quite boring actually personally I find it quite relaxing, I either read or put my headphones on and daydream...and if I'm lucky I might just doze off at least until my half an hourly toilet break anyway...
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