May 23rd, 2019
Mood: Hopeful 😌
My first chemo treatment went well today. We met with the PA for the first time and she was great! We had a few questions and she took the time to answer all of them for us. We also met with my oncologist who is amazing! He had the results of my Echocardiogram from last week and I have a very strong and healthy heart, so he was very happy about that.
My doctor walked us back to the treatment room which had 32 chairs in it and there were only a few that were unoccupied at 10:30 in the morning….we were shocked! They put me in a back corner which was fine with me because as soon as I sat down and saw the machine next to me I started to cry. It was another overwhelming moment were I realized what they were about to put into my body and it is very scary. Matt was there by my side and held my hand while I cried telling me that it will be OK.
My nurse came over and was yet another amazing member of the Center for Cancer Care team. She gave me a steroid, 2 anti nausea meds and fluids first. She chit-chatted with us while she injected the Adriamycin, there were 2 syringes, and she had to administer the drug very slowly to ensure that the medication was going into my artery that the port is hooked up to. Then she hooked up the Cytoxan which took another hour to give to me through my port from a drip bag. So all on all my treatment lasted for 2 1/2 hours so not too bad.
Once the treatment was over my nurse installed the Neulasta box which will automatically inject me with medicine tomorrow at about 4:15. It takes 45 minutes for this process and then it will beep at me and flash a light letting me know it is done. Once it is done I take it off and throw it away. Having this medicine in this form is wonderful because it keeps me from having to go back to my oncologists the day after treatment. Plus I am very relieved to say that I was able to get it for free which is amazing considering it costs between $5000 & $ 7000 per injection…by the time I am done with chemo I will have had 16 if them!
So here I am feeling fine 8 hours later….no side effects at all! We will see what happens during the next few days but everyone on my team is very positive that I will do just fine. 😁
