As The Poison Drips...

This post will be fast, because I'm already feeling the affects of the chemo treatment I had today. My first chemo made me sick for 10 days. I won't put all of the gruesome details here, because none of you need to know that. Let's just say that today, we tried a new nausea medication - the "latest, greatest" on the market. That, in addition to the other 3 nausea medications will hopefully cut down on the amount of days that I'll be sick. The doc was concerned about a few other things (i.e. those "don't need to know" things I was talking about earlier) and so he lowered my dose of one of the chemo meds - Taxotere. That's a pretty wicked drug. I also take Carboplatin and Herceptin. Those three drugs come after the two nausea drugs. They each take about 30 minutes to 1 hour to drip - one at a time - so we are there for about 4-5 hours. My sweet mom, Barbara, is my chemo partner. She picks me up and takes me there and then stays the whole time. Today, it hit me faster - my mouth was so dry by the time I finished, that it was painful. And I'd already started getting tired by the 3rd bag of stuff. In fact, I can hardly keep my eyes open. I used the numbing creme on my skin above the spot where my port is. Oh, some of you probably don't know that I have a port. It's a small plastic triangle thingy that is under the skin of my upper chest - right below my collarbone. It has a cathether that goes into my big monster vein behind my collar bone. That's where the nurses access my vein for the drippy drugs and blood work. The needles are pretty wicked - OUCH! So, I numb the skin an hour before I go. Then, the nurse pokes a yucky needle through my skin and into the port. Today, it work really well. I didn't even feel the needle at all! Yay! The last thing I "get" to have is a shot in my stomach - can't remember what for. That one hurts. Ouch. So, all in all, the day was pretty good. Now the wait begins to see how it will affect me. I'm already started to feel nauseated, so hopefully the 4 pills I just took will start working and they'll knock me out too. ;-)

Note: if you ever have to go through this and you lose your hair, use a dog-hair remover on the stubble on your head - Alex just did this to my head and it really works! :-) Until I can get out of bed for the next post... say it with me, CANCER SUCKS! You know it!