Chemo day one is in the books.
I got there at 9:30,and almost immediately was taken back to the infusion area. Basically a 3-walled room (the walls were not floor to ceiling though), with a curtain that pulled closed.
I had a reclining chair that also had a massage function. Heat, supposedly, but I don’t think that was working. Pretty big area – two chairs for visitors if I had them.
Around 10:30, we finally started the pre-meds. I got a steroid to help with hypersensitivity reactions and nausea, two anti-nausea meds, and Pepcid. When those were done, it was chemo time.
We started with getting my fake cryotherapy ready – a bag of ice for my feet, and two frozen water bottles for my hand. And I got a warm blanket for the rest of me.
She started the Taxotere, and after about ten minutes, I started feeling very warm and almost clammy. I took the blanket off, but just kept getting warmer. So I let the nurses know, and she immediately stopped the chemo, and switched to saline to get the meds diluted more in my system.
Then I had to wait for the nurse practitioner to come evaluate me and the reaction. She ordered Benadryl, so they gave me a bunch of that. Then they re-started the chemo, just a little slower drip. When I tolerated that well, they sped it back up to normal. All was fine after that.
That should’ve taken an hour to administer, but ended up being two with the wait and the Benadryl.
The second chemo was an hour, and I had no issues with that.
Then she took out the port access, after flushing my line, and I had to have two non-port injections. I got a white blood cell growth booster as a shot on my arm, and a hormone block in my belly to stop my periods.
Then I was done and headed out. I slept when I got home, and want to sleep more. My tummy was feeling a little off so I took some anti-nausea meds and am staying awake to make sure they help. Then…. Back to sleep lol.
This again? 