Round 6: Chemo, schmeemo!

After a trip to the ER last night (due to dehydration) I hopped into bed about 2am knowing my 1st chemo session was at 8:15am.  Unfortunately, my body was so nervous about receiving these chemicals that it decided it wanted to be up at 6!!  I forced myself to lay down again until 7:45, when it was time to get ready to go. 

  My mind was racing and I was expecting this glowing green goo to be flowing through my veins.  I expected to vomit profusely, possibly even hallucinate (which I didn't do dammit) and sit in a nice quiet room.  HA HA HA HA!  I wasn't even sick, just tired!  I fell asleep a couple of times, but no nausea.  I didn't see any purple frogs climbing the walls or unicorns dancing on the heads of the nurses, and it certainly wasn't a quiet room.  Can you say "Chemo Cattle Call"?   Yes, there were approximately 20 other chemo patients in there with me.  The nurses were fantastic with great personalities.  It took 5 hours to get all my meds pushed through my port! 

  Again, not knowing what to expect, Barb and I only brought a book and she also brought her needlepoint.  We found out that laptops, DVD players (the portable ones), iPod etc. could be used as long as they had headphones.  Dammit again!  Barb escaped to call Damon to bring our laptops to us and thus he did.  Dammit again!  Even though they had wi-fi, they had ALL of our favorite spots blocked, even my BLOG!!  I was looking forward to blogging live as everything happened.  NO DICE!  So, we won't be bringing the laptops anymore, I will just have to suffer and do it the old-fashioned way... pen and paper.  Oh yeah, we were also told to bring whatever we wanted to eat and it was Damon to the rescue again (same trip as the laptops) and did he supply us!  It was a smorgasbord of goodies and they were yummy, alas, he left us thirsty.  Now it was Barb's dad to the rescue, bless his heart!  He brought her the thermos of coffee (if you know Barb, you know she can't last 1/2 hour without her coffee!) and brought me 2 diet Pepsis (what is the plural for Pepsi??)  Shucks, I can't drink that diet crap... so I drank out of the lid of the thermos.  After mixing my coffee, I had nothing to stir with, so Barb pulled a MacGyver and opened a pack of her insulin needles... PRESTO... instant coffee stir stick that can be re-used! :D

  I have three different chemotherapy drugs that I am being treated with, along with anti-nausea medication, magnesium and potassium twice in one session, normal saline and a water pill.  Tomorrow will be easier, it will only be 3 hours long.  One chemo drug plus the 2 magnesium and potassium (this particular med strips you of your mag and potassium, so they up it to try to maintain a normal level).   Thanks to this heavy dose of chemo, I can say bye-bye to my hair in 2 weeks, so it's time for the purple mohawk!

  So that is it in a nutshell... Oh and Lisa, the nurse that gave me the water pill... I owe you BIG TIME... I can't stop peeing!

A special thanks to my monthly friend for showing up on such a wonderful day!  Grrrrr!