This was supposed to be my good week, the week between chemo treatments when cancer moved to the back burner and I felt human again. I did feel human, but cancer still had a starring role.
On Monday, I had to go in for a dye test to see what was happening with my recalcitrant chemo port. The port disc is the size of a quarter and sits below the skin in my upper left chest. A tube running off to the side of the disc is supposed to feed directly into large vein. In my case, the tube makes a complete loop around the port, before feeding into the vein. This is probably what's making the chemo treatments so sluggish and time consuming.
"Never seen that before," said Dr. K, who did the dye test. From there, it was a series of phone calls to convey the test results and schedule to surgery to fix the port. So, Monday I'll be going under the knife again to, most likely, get a new port. Because chemo's supposed to start the next day, the surgeon will place the chemo needle during surgery so it's in place for Tuesday's third round of chemo.
Not a major complication, by any means, but enough aggravation to be depressing. How depressing? I spent 45 minutes wandering a department store's super sale with a 30 percent off coupon in my pocket and couldn't find a thing to buy. That's just not like me.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Nothing's ever easy!
My chemo port is misbehaving. Today, it would give no blood (so I had to have a stick in the arm), and unless I was flat on my back, the chemo drip slowed to a random drop every few seconds. Normally, being told to lie down would be music to my ears. However, even good things like recliners have their limits and two hours flat on my back is mine.
Phyllis pointed out that a gentleman who was getting the exact same chemo as me started a half hour after I did and finished a half hour ago. I still have 800 ml to go, plus another smaller bag of something else after that. I've already been here four hours!
So the next adventure in my treatment will be next week (my "off" week) to get some dye injected into the port so that any problems in my line will be visible. Phyllis says I may need a new chemo port, which probably means another surgery. But if it speeds things along, it will be worth it.
Phyllis pointed out that a gentleman who was getting the exact same chemo as me started a half hour after I did and finished a half hour ago. I still have 800 ml to go, plus another smaller bag of something else after that. I've already been here four hours!
So the next adventure in my treatment will be next week (my "off" week) to get some dye injected into the port so that any problems in my line will be visible. Phyllis says I may need a new chemo port, which probably means another surgery. But if it speeds things along, it will be worth it.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Chemo: 1 down, 25 to go; er, make that 1 down, 12 to go; oops, 1 down, 11 to go!
I always have been math challenged. Somehow, when they said six month's of chemo, I divided the 52 weeks in a year in half, and figured I had 26 treatments. Amanda was driving me home after my first treatment and I was filling in a friend via phone: "So, I've got 1 down and 25 more to go." Amanda said: "WHAT?" and pointed out the fallacy in my calculations. I had totally overlooked the fact that my treatments would be every other week, thereby cutting 26 in half. What a relief! I'd gone from mentally preparing for 26 treatments and, in the blink of an eye, it had been cut to 13! Two days later, when I related that story to my chemo nurse Phyllis as she disconnected me from my pump, she gave me even more good news. "Actually, six months of chemo is only 12 sessions. You've just got 11 left!"
So, I've survived my first chemo experience. It began with nurses complaining about my chemo port placement. Seems instead of surgically placing it in a "pocket" with the incision above the device, mine had been placed so that the tender five-day old incision ran directly over the membrane nurses need to access to get the poison flowing. There was much hemming and hawing as two nurses tried to determine exactly where to stick the needle. (Have I mentioned how much I love getting stuck with needles?) In fact, when the port was first described to me, I envisioned it as more of an IV hookup that permanently hung outside my body for easy, needle-poke free access. I think I was confusing a chemo port with a PICC Line.
Anyway, lucky for me, it was a one-stick wonder and the only remaining concern seemed to be positioning me to maximize the flow. Amanda was my chemo buddy and kept me company for the nearly four-hour process. There were at least a dozen chemo patients in the room; some younger, some older; some with buddies, some alone; some sleeping, some chatting. Not everyone's chemo is the same length, so some came and went while I was there; others were there when I arrived and still there when I left. (Note to self: Pick a better chair next time. My recliner partially blocked the doorway to the nurses station so I was constantly pulling up my legs trying to get out of the way of passing nurses.)
I expected some "momentous occasion" feelings, but none came so I passed the time reading magazines, snoozing, people-watching, eaves-dropping and chatting with Amanda. The side effects kicked in later that day. They warned me about hyper sensitivity to cold and that happened with my first drink of water. The sensation was akin to dipping your foot in a too-cold pool. Only it was happening inside my mouth and throat. It wasn't painful, like a ice-cream brain freeze, just jarring. The next side effect happened at home when I carried a Diet Coke in from the garage fridge to my dresser. Halfway there, it felt like pins and needles were shooting into my finger tips. Sort of like accidentally shocking yourself. Or like having a hand or foot fall asleep. Thankfully, the sensation stopped as soon as I put the can down.
They start you off with anti-nausea medication — and it worked for me. The in-office portion of the chemo cocktail took four hours. Then they hooked me up to a pump that would give me an hourly dose of one of the drugs over the next two days. I was invisioning a tiny little pump, but this thing was like a first-generation cell phone. Fortunately, it came in a case that I could carry over the shoulder, in a purse or wear as a fanny pack. At night, it rested on the pillow next to me — softly whirring once an hour. I had to remember to carry it with me for middle-of-the-night pit stops. Only once did I forget and start waltzing into the bathroom, only to be yanked back by my tubing. No harm done.
On Thursday, I went to be disconnected from my pump. I told Phyllis about a dull-but-definite headache I'd had for 30 or so hours post-chemo. No amount of Tylenol or Motrin knocked it back. "That's the steroids," she said. STEROIDS???? (There goes my chance of making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.) Turns out steroids are part of the anti-nausea medication included in the chemo cocktail. Next time, they'll cut the steroids in half and I'll get to figure out whether I'd rather be more queasy or take my chances with the headache.
Thursday afternoon, the fatigue side-effect kicked in with a vengeance; I could have slept 24-7. By Saturday, I was perking back up.
My "week off" has been good (aside from a lingering side effect that has made Imodium my new best friend). I've heard conflicting reports: One, that chemo gets worse as it goes along; two, that your first experience is pretty typical of how you'll tolerate it. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter.
Thanks to all of you who've inquired how it's going. Didn't mean to keep you in the dark for so long, but I've spent the better part of my "week off" rounding up tax papers. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: "Nothing is certain except chemo and taxes."
So, I've survived my first chemo experience. It began with nurses complaining about my chemo port placement. Seems instead of surgically placing it in a "pocket" with the incision above the device, mine had been placed so that the tender five-day old incision ran directly over the membrane nurses need to access to get the poison flowing. There was much hemming and hawing as two nurses tried to determine exactly where to stick the needle. (Have I mentioned how much I love getting stuck with needles?) In fact, when the port was first described to me, I envisioned it as more of an IV hookup that permanently hung outside my body for easy, needle-poke free access. I think I was confusing a chemo port with a PICC Line.
Anyway, lucky for me, it was a one-stick wonder and the only remaining concern seemed to be positioning me to maximize the flow. Amanda was my chemo buddy and kept me company for the nearly four-hour process. There were at least a dozen chemo patients in the room; some younger, some older; some with buddies, some alone; some sleeping, some chatting. Not everyone's chemo is the same length, so some came and went while I was there; others were there when I arrived and still there when I left. (Note to self: Pick a better chair next time. My recliner partially blocked the doorway to the nurses station so I was constantly pulling up my legs trying to get out of the way of passing nurses.)
I expected some "momentous occasion" feelings, but none came so I passed the time reading magazines, snoozing, people-watching, eaves-dropping and chatting with Amanda. The side effects kicked in later that day. They warned me about hyper sensitivity to cold and that happened with my first drink of water. The sensation was akin to dipping your foot in a too-cold pool. Only it was happening inside my mouth and throat. It wasn't painful, like a ice-cream brain freeze, just jarring. The next side effect happened at home when I carried a Diet Coke in from the garage fridge to my dresser. Halfway there, it felt like pins and needles were shooting into my finger tips. Sort of like accidentally shocking yourself. Or like having a hand or foot fall asleep. Thankfully, the sensation stopped as soon as I put the can down.
They start you off with anti-nausea medication — and it worked for me. The in-office portion of the chemo cocktail took four hours. Then they hooked me up to a pump that would give me an hourly dose of one of the drugs over the next two days. I was invisioning a tiny little pump, but this thing was like a first-generation cell phone. Fortunately, it came in a case that I could carry over the shoulder, in a purse or wear as a fanny pack. At night, it rested on the pillow next to me — softly whirring once an hour. I had to remember to carry it with me for middle-of-the-night pit stops. Only once did I forget and start waltzing into the bathroom, only to be yanked back by my tubing. No harm done.
On Thursday, I went to be disconnected from my pump. I told Phyllis about a dull-but-definite headache I'd had for 30 or so hours post-chemo. No amount of Tylenol or Motrin knocked it back. "That's the steroids," she said. STEROIDS???? (There goes my chance of making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.) Turns out steroids are part of the anti-nausea medication included in the chemo cocktail. Next time, they'll cut the steroids in half and I'll get to figure out whether I'd rather be more queasy or take my chances with the headache.
Thursday afternoon, the fatigue side-effect kicked in with a vengeance; I could have slept 24-7. By Saturday, I was perking back up.
My "week off" has been good (aside from a lingering side effect that has made Imodium my new best friend). I've heard conflicting reports: One, that chemo gets worse as it goes along; two, that your first experience is pretty typical of how you'll tolerate it. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter.
Thanks to all of you who've inquired how it's going. Didn't mean to keep you in the dark for so long, but I've spent the better part of my "week off" rounding up tax papers. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: "Nothing is certain except chemo and taxes."
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