1st Chemo Day

I started out my day by heading to see my Oncologist at 9am. I ended up playing musical chairs and giving my chair up for every new person coming into the waiting room for about 30 minutes before I was let into see the doctor. I was the youngest person there after all... and they had sick patients they had to fit in. One crowded room though!
The doc has mostly all good news to tell me:

• Bone Scan came back negative for cancer. It does not appear to be in my bones.
• Echocardiogram showed i had a healthy heart and even pumped 5% more blood than average
• CT Scan showed no cancer in the abdomen, chest and core. It did reveal a 2 or 3 mm spot on one of my lungs but he said it could be due to a scar from a previous infection. He made sure to state at the end of his sentence "Not Cancer".
• Then he informed me that I would head over to the Chemo treatment center off of Old Newport Blvd.
• He also informed me that I would need to come in every week for my Herceptin and take this by IV. The appointment would probably only take a hour... that was a bummer.

I got to the treatment center and got started. I had 6 hours ahead of me. You sit in a big Easy-Boy chair with about 32 other patients (they come and go throughout the day). The room is sectioned off into 4 groups of 8 chairs. The nurse first took my weight and height. Height? Cripes, I'm 41 and haven't started to shrink yet!?! Plus, she marked me down as 5'2". I'm 5'3"! When you are short, no one wants to be marked down as shorter ;-)

Anyway, next they took my blood and showed me the results and the values that they need to look at each time before I have chemo:

• White blood cell count - fights infection
• Granularity - older white blood cells
• Red Blood cell count - Indicates Anemia if it is low
• Hemoglobin
• Platelets - Helps Blood to clot

Then she started up my IV and got me started on the pre-meds:

• Aloxi - prevents nausea and vomiting
• Ativan - prevents nausea and anxiety - this one made me feel very woozy, could no longer read and knocked me right out. At least I got to sleep :-)
• Decadron - prevents nausea
• Zantac - to prevent allergic reaction
• Benadryl - to prevent allergic reaction. I think these two are primarily for the Taxotere which comes from the needle biomass of the Yew plant

then onto the chemo and antibody:

• Carboplatin - 1 hr
• Taxotere - 2 hrs (because of risk of allergy)
• Herceptin - 1 hr

As of the time I am writing this, i am having no real side effects. Am feeling a slight bit of indegestion or stomach issues but on a scale of 1-10, I'd say they fall around 2. No nausea yet.

Tomorrow I go in a for a quick shot of Neulasta to boost my white blood cells. Then we'll just see how it goes!

I am sorry to make this blog longer, but I wanted to add that I appreciate all of the comments, emails and notes of support and encouragement. I have wonderful friends, family, neighbours and co-workers, and you are all making this so much more bearable without my husband Doug here. THANK YOU!!