Chemo Countdown!

 

The Countdown Continues!

 

I am counting down to my last chemo. My last pictures showed 6 fingers. This time I am only holding 5 fingers up to show slow but steady progress towards getting to the end of chemo! I had chemo on Tuesday, May 27th. I had the "nasty" shot (Neulasta) the next day.

 

 

                                             

Arland, Katie, and I arrived at the RMCC at 8:45am. I had a blood draw at 9am. They draw blood every time I have chemo to make sure my white blood count (WBC) is high enough to get chemo. Because of the "nasty" shot, it has always been high enough.

 

They can draw blood out of my port so no additional needle sticks are needed! They leave the needle in my port for the next hour while I wait for the lab to determine that my WBC is indeed, high enough.

 

Chemo begins with four pre-chemo meds.  Each of these are given one at a time in my IV port. These meds are needed to help ease the chemo symptoms I will get after my infusion. I get my Herceptin, the targeted therapy drug, first. During this entire time, there are many flushes where they use a regular IV solution to get all the meds out of the line before they start the next med.

 

By now, it is past lunch time so they bring me a bag lunch which includes a sandwich, chips, water, and a cookie.

 

When the first chemo drug is brought into my room, the nurse dons a gown, safety glasses, and wears double gloves. Then she hooks the chemo bag on the IV pole and hooks the IV tube onto my port. Yes, chemo is NASTY stuff...and I get to have it put into my body!  :-) 

 

Note: She is smiling...I am not!  Just kidding!!!

 

 

 

After the first chemo is done the nurse comes in, gets a new set of protective gear on again, and unhooks the empty chemo bag. Then she puts the empty bag and all the tubing into a BIOHAZARD waste disposal bag! Yikes!!! They are serious about this chemo stuff!

 

The next step is to hook up chemo #2  and go through the entire process again. After chemo # 2 has run out, the nurse comes back, dons all the gear AGAIN, flushes my IV, and disposes the bag and lines in another biohazard bag!

By now, it is 4:00pm and I have been at the RMCC for 7 hours and 15 minutes!!! YUP! An all-day process! Katie sticks it out for all 7 1/4 hours. Arland comes and goes. Kristi pops in when her work schedule allows. Bob has Olivia most of the time (or is flying somewhere) so he doesn't come because I don't want Olivia amongst all those icky drugs. I know it gets to be a loooooooong day for them and I very much appreciate their company.

 

Someone asked about aaaalllll that fluid. Yes, it IS a lot of fluid going in!

When I need to use the bathroom, my nurse will unplug the IV machine from the outlet (it has a battery pack so the infusion is not interrupted). Then she unhooks the blood pressure cuff. After that, I am untethered so I push my IV pole to the nearest bathroom. Luckily, there are several bathrooms there!!! All of them are individual bathrooms because it is not easy with an IV pole, IV lines, etc...
 

Because my pre-chemo IV meds include Benadryl, I cannot drive so Katie takes me home shortly after 4:00pm. It gets to be a long day for both of us!

Exactly 24 hours later, I return to the RMCC to get the "nasty" (Neulasta) shot. Twenty four hours needs to have passed before I can get the shot.

This is probably waaaay more than you wanted to know about chemo but now you know!