August 23, 2010

My first chemo treatment ended 3 hours ago.  I left the lab feeling no different than when I went in.  But a sleeping Leviathan lurks in my veins.  It could be stirring.  I'm starting to feel a little tired.

We got to the clinic at 2:15 PM.  Dr. Blumenreich had to check my "infection" first.  Actually, it turns out it's not an infection at all.  It's a breast lymphedema, which is not real common apparently.  Lymphedema typically occurs in the arm on the side where lymph nodes (usually all of them) have been removed.  With the nodes gone, there's nowhere for the lymph (part of our everyday body function) to be drained and get filtered.  Sometimes the arm swells with the retained fluid.  In my case, only 3 nodes were removed, but these were the sentinel nodes -- the ones that lymph from the breast traveled to first.  With those nodes gone, as well as the vessels leading to them, my breast had trouble draining fluid that resulted from the surgery.  So, the slight swelling and redness that was originally attributed to infection is just that lymphedema.  I finished the course of antibiotic that I started anyway, and have been applying heat packs to the area for the past few days.  It's better than it was a week ago, but it's not totally back to normal.  But Dr. B felt it would not be worsened by the chemo, so we went ahead.

The chemo lab is a brightly lit room with about 8 recliners (complete with heat and massage options) lined up against the windowed wall.  I took my place on one end, with Al on a chair next to me.  First my technician, Linda, took some blood samples, to check that my levels (particularly white blood cell count) were normal; they were.  Then (after signing all the consent forms) she started the "preventatives" drip.  These are two anti-nausea drugs (Aloxi and Decadron) that are combined with saline and fed through the veins. The Aloxi lasts about a day; the Decadron for 2-3 days.  They must have worked, because I have had no nausea at all yet.

Once those drips were completed, Linda (the blonde on the right in the photo) manually fed two vials of liquid that looked like cherry Kool-Aid gradually into my IV tube.  This was Adriamycin, a rather nasty vesicant that does good things for cancer victims.  The technician must introduce this drug because if any of it inadvertently escapes the vein, it can cause extensive skin damage and blistering.  (She did a fine job.)

When those vials were empty, she attached the second chemo drug, Cytoxan.  This took a little over an hour to complete.  During this whole process, I was able to sleep, talk, walk around (I didn't), or read (got a few pages of Deathly Hallows read; I'll get more reading done next time, now that I know the drill).  The drugs are fairly cool (room temperature) compared to the body's temperature, so at one point I asked Al to get a blanket out of the warming machine and drape it over my bear legs and feet.  Eventually, I also pulled it up over my arms.  This felt surprisingly good, considering my post-menopausal body is always on a low simmer.

When we were done, about 4:45 PM (the exam at the front end set us behind a little), we walked around the grounds a little. The hospital has a couple of nice gardens with waterfalls, and we took them in.  Then we headed to Target, where we needed to pick up two prescriptions for anti-nausea drugs to take at home, as needed.  NOTE TO SELF:  Try to avoid going to Target pharmacy between the hours of 5:00 - 6:30 PM.  They were very busy, and I was told "20 minutes" three times before we finally got the prescription.

As a treat, since I still was feeling fine, we stopped at It's Just Perfect in Chaska for a couple of malts.  They were very good (especially the whipped cream on top), but I'm glad I just got a small one.  When we got home, we were just starting to figure out what Al would eat (I wasn't really very hungry, having had a rather large lunch, ginger ale during the chemo treatment, and the malt), when the doorbell rang and there was my darling neighbor, Sarah, delivering a meal from her mom, Tracy!  And it was perfect!  Not too heavy, and wonderfully tasty.  (I understand my tastebuds are going to start to rebel in the next few days, and everything is going to taste different to me.  I may not be able to stomach old favorites, and things I don't like now may taste wonderful.)

So, now I wait for the onslaught.  There is a long list of side effects, but different people seem to suffer from different ones at different intensities.  So we'll learn in the next two weeks what my body's proclivities are.  I have a lot of reading to do.  I requested a copy of my blood workup, so I'll watch what happens to my white cells every week throughout this process.  Some people don't really want to know all that's going on with them during chemo, preferring to leave all the details to the professionals.  But I'm an analytical type, so I am interested in the details.  To me, more information leads to more understanding.  But that's me.

Yes, I'm feeling ... different.  A kind of "heaviness" is starting to settle in.  I think I could sleep.  But the Twins are only in the top of the 5th, so I might have to go check in on them for awhile.

I'll report in again tomorrow, maybe early in the day, but for sure after my Neulasta injection.  Another cancer victim, who provided me with a whole list of chemo tips, said her worst day was alwasy the day after the injection.  We'll have to see.