My First Chemo Appointment

Friday February 27th was my first chemo appointment. I followed instructions and had a light breakfast - a bowl of cereal. Bryan took off work to take me and my grandma came over to watch the girls.

We arrived at the clinic a little before 9:00 and soon I was sitting in a burgundy leather remote control recliner. Bryan had to sit in a regular old chair. This was supposed to take 3-4 hours and I was not looking forward to have to spend that much time there.

A nurse hooked into my port but was unable to flush or draw from it. Two other nurses tried, including the clinic manager, but were unable to get it to work. They changed the needle three times and tried both sides of the double lumen port. They finally were able to flush, but not draw.

Dr. Howard came to take a look at me. She checked over both of my arms thoroughly, searching for what - I did not know. She noticed the veins on my right arm were more pronounced than the left. She ordered some radiology tests.

We called my mom to see if she could come watch the girls since we were going to be much longer than we thought and we don't like leaving my 82 year old grandma with the girls more than a few hours. She left work and went to our house, but my grandma wouldn't leave. She wanted to know what was going on at all times.

I was sent down to radiology and there an Interventional Radiologist flushed a dye thru my port while I lay on a table under an x-ray like machine. This procedure was to make sure the port catheter didn't have any leaks and was working properly. Everything looked good and one of the radiology nurses got the port to draw so I walked on down the hall to ultrasound and waited.

After what felt like an eternity, I was called into the ultrasound room. There I had to remove my shirt and the tech did an ultrasound of the right side of my neck, chest, and arm. I was surprisingly calm - usually these things piss me off to no end, the waiting and hassle but I just rolled with it. Finally I was sent back to the clinic where I found my poor husband worried out of his mind, stressed, and with an upset stomach.

I came back and sat in my recliner. They still had trouble drawing but once I turned my head to the left, it started working. They sent my labs and we waited. We were waiting and waiting. One of the nurses told me that they did find a blood clot around the port catheter and that Dr. Howard would come talk to me about it.

We were starving. I sent Bryan down to the cafeteria to get us some lunch. I could tell he wasn't handling this well. He brought back a big turkey and bacon sandwich and some pretzels and we split it. He mentioned his stomach was upset...again.

Finally Dr. Howard came to talk to us. I did have a blood clot and I would have to go on blood thinners until they take the port out - at the end of my treatment which was months and months away!

I had to start with Arixtra - a subcutaneous injection. They instructed Bryan on how to inject the shot into my belly fat. We would have to do this for a week and then have another ultrasound to see if the clot dissolved.

I could see that Bryan was feeling worse and worse and we had been waiting for hours. Finally they gave me a test dose of the Bleomycin. This drug can cause an allergic reaction and affects the lungs. I tolerated the test dose well so they started the rest of the dosage. I called my mom and asked her to come to the clinic and Bryan would go home. They switched places and my mom was with me for just over an hour while I had the rest of the meds. One of the meds was in a big syringe and was dark red. We finally left the clinic a little after 5:00. I joked with the nurses that I should've punched in.

Bryan had already gotten all of my prescriptions filled except the Arixtra which my mom and I picked up on the way home...a lovely $75 co-pay. She dropped me off and I could see instantly that Bryan was feeling better. My sister and brother-in-law came over that night and hung out with us. The first time I went to the bathroom I stood up and flushed, then turned around and noticed that my urine was reddish. I got really scared thinking my kidneys couldn't handle the chemo but then reason took over and I deducted that it was from the "red devil" medication. I had one wave of nausea around 9:45pm, but took a pill and it went away.

It was a very long day and by 10:30 I was wiped out and falling asleep in my rocking chair - like a little old lady I thought to myself.