And So The Journey Begins

Ah, the post you have all been waiting for. The results of my very first day as a chemotherapy patient at LRCP.

Well, my morning started off with a screaming alarm clock at 7AM... this being after I stayed up until 3:30AM playing with my new ipod. HEHE! procrastinating to see if I could make today disappear. It didn't work.

Mr. Reggie Robins picked my sorry ass up at 8AM and took me over to Sarah Hern's house in woodstock. She was ready with snacks for both of us. I drove her neon to the appointment and we managed to get there in due time.

Had blood work done as soon as I got there, filled out my kiosk (it asks a bunch of questions to help the doctors gauge your well-being) and waited to meet with my primary nurse, Nancy, and my Oncologist who is supposed to be Dr. Chin-Yee but yet again I met with a doctor I had never met before. Bright side? he was cute! with FANTASTIC teeth. me = jealous.

FINALLY got some of my questions answered. I am in stage 3B advanced bulky H.L. They are going to do six-eight rounds (12-16 treatments, two a month for 6-8 months) give me six weeks of recovery the approximately 4 weeks of radiation treatment. At best, i will be back to work in 8 months, but most likely looking at 12-14 months before I am able to work again. BLAH! this sucks. :(

Doctor gave me notes I required for my tax relief application, gave me a prescription to prevent gout and addressed all of my concerns. He assured me that I WILL lose my hair, especially with how vigorous this treatment is. mohawk here I come! ;) He sent me over to chemotherapy reception with some forms and I signed myself in. While sitting, and attempting to wait patiently the sweats kicked in, the nerves hit the roof. I wanted to go home. I asked Sarah on several occasions if I could just go home. I didn't want to walk into a room, stick out my arm and willingly let some nurse poison me. Are you joking?!

Sure enough my pager went off long before I could convince Sarah it was time to go. A really nice RN named Haley met me at the doorway to hell... I couldn't turn back now. As Rodney Atkins says "If you're going through hell, keep on going. Don't look back, if you're scared don't show it! you might get out 'fore the devil even knows you're there!" I grumped my way over to my bed, looking around me as I went... I must have been the youngest person there by 20 years at best. I felt like a child.

Haley was really great with me. Giving me lots of time to prepare for my IV, warming my arm up. Seemed genuinely interested in what I do for a living and just a general nice person. She went over all the medications with me. And OFF we were. First, "the red devil" AKA Adriamycin. It came in a rather large syringe and was force fed into my IV.

Next up: Viznblastine. This came in a considerably smaller syringe, but also needed to be force fed. those two were done in no time, next two are your wait time.

Next: Bleomycin. It's a small bag that is dripped directly into my vein. When the drip is complete and alarm goes off and they flush my vein with saline.

Last, but certainly not least: Dastardly Dacarbazine. It's a much large bag that comes out and needs to drip for anywhere from 1 - 2 hours depending on what your veins can handle. Dacarbazine is very irritating to the vein so they have to splice it with Saline. This was the only drug that caused me any grief. It felt like someone was ripping at the inside of my veins. The had to reduce the dosage twice before it was comfortable. ICK.

In the mean time I've found cards to be great at passing the time. Sarah and I played a few rounds of crazy eights and a few of Go-Fish. I had the Pod on me and in general the experience really wasn't that bad. Not what I had anticipated anyway. The needles still suck, but I think they will always suck. I can feel that my body wants to feel ill but I continually take my anti-nausea pills they prescribed for me. I think I will be ok... For now. We will see how I feel tomorrow.

I am going to try to attach the photos from the day.