So I was asked the question again - not that I mind the question; sometimes I answer it without being asked. I always thought I was more of a quiet type - apparently that is not true. When they gave me the pre-anesthesia med before a surgery to install my chemotherapy port, every one I passed became my VERY BEST friend - I think I even asked the nurses if I could use the phone. The point is I may like to hear my own voice a bit too much in certain situations - and "the question" seems to be just one of those situations.
The question: "So... (insert their personal story of someone they knew/know with cancer here) but what is chemotherapy like?" It is hard to answer that question - because every patient has a different experience based on their "chemo cocktail" formulated for their specific disease and their reaction to it. I only can tell you how it is for me. My chemotherapy sessions are once every three weeks on a Tuesday and last most of a business day.
They start in the morning after drawing blood from my port (a device inserted under the skin in my chest that is attached to tubing running directly into a major artery to my heart). There are several IV bags that make my "cocktail". After a bag of saline, I get about a forty-five minute dose of antihistamine, steroids and anti-nausea meds. This is followed by the Carboplatinum which takes a few hours - but by then the antihistamine has knocked me out and I am sleeping peacefully on a over sized recliner with a warm, snugly blanket covering me. I usually wake about half way through the Carbo. Sadly, there are an abundance of patients around if you want to start up a conversation. You tend to make friends with those on the same schedule - your monthly chemo cocktail party.
Another nap or some dinking around on the computer, maybe a chapter in a book or a conversation and the final thirty minute bag, Taxol, gets attached to Fred. (Sorry - should explain that one. Fred is my IV pole - we dance together every time I want to get up for some water or to go to the restroom. I figured since he spent so much time dancing with me that he should have a name - and I choice to name him after Fred Astaire as he is a pretty good dancer not to have stepped on my feet once during our sessions.) Then it is over and the fun begins - ok well maybe fun is not the word. But I am going to have to leave that for the next posting.
