March 16, 2006....Chemo Day #2
I was just a basket case yesterday—all day. So when Debbie spent what seemed like a half hour trying to find a vein, all that while having a very tight, painful tourniquet on my arm, I just lost it. It didn’t help that I was at one end of the room and Fred with my bag of kleenix was at the other end. She had to go pretty deep and got it on the first try. That part didn’t hurt. It was the tourniquet and anticipation that got to me. All I wanted to do was to make all this go away, or at least let ME get away from there. I wasn’t looking forward to more poison in the veins. So there I was on the lounge chair with an empty syringe sticking out of my arm, shaking, sobbing, and trying to hide my face from the others in the room.
Before the syringe is put in place, they take a couple tumblers (they call them vials) of blood, then shoot salt water into the line before sticking that syringe at the end to close it off. She let me feel my arm while shooting in the salt water. You could actually feel it gurgling into the vein!
After that I had to wait to see the doctor. He was so excited at how small the tumor had shrunk. Said he’d never had one shrink that fast with just one round of chemo. So I suggested, “Then, let’s skip the rest of the chemos and get on with the surgery!” He wouldn’t see it, and he assured me that the effects won’t be any worse than my first time around—except for the fatigue. Plus he seemed pretty tickled that I had no nausea—like I was his first patient ever who didn’t throw up! It just means I don’t get to try the “medical marijuana!” Bummer! ….as in Chris Tovani.
So back to the infusion room, only this time Fred asked if I could take the empty recliner next to him so we could actually hear each other. By this time, there were only 2 other patients in the room, and they both escaped shortly after our reappearance.
The other two nurses were home sick yesterday, so Debbie was alone, and SHE was wearing a mask because she felt she was coming down with something. She started a small bag of KYTRIL, a middle sized bag of saline solution, and a giant sized bag of cytoxan. She then took off her regular rubber gloves and put on some special acid resistant heavy duty purple rubber gloves. It’s required for certain chemos. (Wouldn’t want to get any of that on your skin, now would we?—just shoot it into the veins!) She brought out 3 horse sized syringes full of this red, caustic solution and pushed them into another opening in the IV line. That was the Adriamycin. When that and all the medicine bags are empty, Debbie disconnected me, shot me in the tummy with Neulasta, and sent me on my way.
The Kytril is for nausea; cytoxan and adriamycin are the anti-cancer drugs; and the neulasta is to jump start the bone marrow to make new reds, whites, and platelets that the cytoxan and adriamycin have just destroyed. It’s the neulasta that causes the excruciating bone pain and headaches.
Yesterday’s difficulties in vein finding (and last week’s, also) made me decide to go the port route. So the morning of March 29th, a radiologist will install a permanent port in my chest. It would be so easy then for them to get blood and give the chemo. It’d be different if they could just use the vein in the elbow. But that area just can’t be used to deliver the caustic stuff. My inside elbow already has so many tracks from the last 7 years. I really need to preserve its integrity for simple blood draws, now that the left arm is considered useless for any of that kind of stuff. That was another reason I got upset. I realize that some doors slam shut after you cross certain thresholds, and I just don’t know if I want to cross this one.
WBC – 19.9
Lymphs – 8.8
Neuts – 9.7
PLT – 162
RBC – 3.85
HGB – 12.1
I still have most of my hair, but I am shedding. I actually thought it’d be all on my pillow this morning. But no such luck. Yesterday there were 16, and today 20. However, when I run my fingers through my hair, there’s usually 4 or 5 that come with them.
Before the syringe is put in place, they take a couple tumblers (they call them vials) of blood, then shoot salt water into the line before sticking that syringe at the end to close it off. She let me feel my arm while shooting in the salt water. You could actually feel it gurgling into the vein!
After that I had to wait to see the doctor. He was so excited at how small the tumor had shrunk. Said he’d never had one shrink that fast with just one round of chemo. So I suggested, “Then, let’s skip the rest of the chemos and get on with the surgery!” He wouldn’t see it, and he assured me that the effects won’t be any worse than my first time around—except for the fatigue. Plus he seemed pretty tickled that I had no nausea—like I was his first patient ever who didn’t throw up! It just means I don’t get to try the “medical marijuana!” Bummer! ….as in Chris Tovani.
So back to the infusion room, only this time Fred asked if I could take the empty recliner next to him so we could actually hear each other. By this time, there were only 2 other patients in the room, and they both escaped shortly after our reappearance.
The other two nurses were home sick yesterday, so Debbie was alone, and SHE was wearing a mask because she felt she was coming down with something. She started a small bag of KYTRIL, a middle sized bag of saline solution, and a giant sized bag of cytoxan. She then took off her regular rubber gloves and put on some special acid resistant heavy duty purple rubber gloves. It’s required for certain chemos. (Wouldn’t want to get any of that on your skin, now would we?—just shoot it into the veins!) She brought out 3 horse sized syringes full of this red, caustic solution and pushed them into another opening in the IV line. That was the Adriamycin. When that and all the medicine bags are empty, Debbie disconnected me, shot me in the tummy with Neulasta, and sent me on my way.
The Kytril is for nausea; cytoxan and adriamycin are the anti-cancer drugs; and the neulasta is to jump start the bone marrow to make new reds, whites, and platelets that the cytoxan and adriamycin have just destroyed. It’s the neulasta that causes the excruciating bone pain and headaches.
Yesterday’s difficulties in vein finding (and last week’s, also) made me decide to go the port route. So the morning of March 29th, a radiologist will install a permanent port in my chest. It would be so easy then for them to get blood and give the chemo. It’d be different if they could just use the vein in the elbow. But that area just can’t be used to deliver the caustic stuff. My inside elbow already has so many tracks from the last 7 years. I really need to preserve its integrity for simple blood draws, now that the left arm is considered useless for any of that kind of stuff. That was another reason I got upset. I realize that some doors slam shut after you cross certain thresholds, and I just don’t know if I want to cross this one.
WBC – 19.9
Lymphs – 8.8
Neuts – 9.7
PLT – 162
RBC – 3.85
HGB – 12.1
I still have most of my hair, but I am shedding. I actually thought it’d be all on my pillow this morning. But no such luck. Yesterday there were 16, and today 20. However, when I run my fingers through my hair, there’s usually 4 or 5 that come with them.
1 Comments:
Margaret,
Bless your heart. That anticipation is the worst part, isn't it? That is FANTASTIC news that the tumor is shrinking so well. You WILL beat this, I know! Plus, look at the beneficial side effect that it is having on the CLL. Those counts are looking good. I am glad to hear you are getting a port put in. I am glad I did. I hope you will have a few days to heal between the time they put it in and the next infusion. I had mine done on a Thursday and the infusion was on Monday. The soreness wasn't bad at any time, but I wouldn't have wanted it any closer. It took about a week for the swelling to completely go away. Now it is no problem at all and I mostly don't realize it is there. A couple of things you can do is ask for some numbing salve on a patch to put on an hour before infusion, or, like I do, have them spray it with cold to numb it. That way you don't even feel the needle go into it. (The needle is bigger than a vein infusion needle.) I really think you will like having it, at least compared to the alternative.
I hope you continue not having any nausea! You are still in my prayers.
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