This could take awhile...

Last Friday we see the doctor, answer a few more questions for the study I'm in, and reschedule for my next weekly appointments. Yes, I will be down at the University every Friday...you now know where to find me. After that, we started down the Green Mile...okay, not that dramatic, but the hallway that leads to the infusion center. (aka: where you get juiced) Little did we know what was in store for us.

You know you are in trouble when the first thing the woman who is giving us an overview starts her spiel with, "We are building a new cancer center. It will be done in January. Until then, we have more patients than we have chairs/beds for so you could possibly wait 2 to 3 hours before you get your treatment." How do you respond to that. I joked that they should give you a buzzer like at the restaurants...no joke. They do. It will reach anywhere in the hospital...watch out gift shop. I felt like I'd won first prize when we only had to wait 45 minutes!

So, I'm sitting in the infusion chair because they can give me one of my chemos (this is a 2 chemo day) sitting up while the other goes into my belly while I'm laying down. They get my IV in and start telling me of the benefits of antihistamines while she is pushing Benedryl into my IV...quickly.Too quickly. Picture "out of  body experience/bad amusement park ride/ heroine trip. Since I'm out of body at that time I can tell you, Kim did not like this AT ALL. I tried to reach for a graham  cracker and missed. Once I got the graham cracker, I tried to take a bite and promptly put it into my cheek. This was hold-up #1. They had to wait for those effects to wear off before I could take my oral anti nausia medicine and the start the Taxol. Now, you can also have an allergic reaction to the Taxol if they push it in your IV too quickly...yep, you guessed it...after about 3 minutes, I felt like someone was standing on my chest and then heat started to rise up my neck, into my face and before they interrupted the reaction it felt like I was floating from my nose down in warm water. Weird. That was Hold-Up #2:

Now they had to wait for me to recover from the reaction of the Taxol. That means that when they get to start the chemo again, they have to allow the Taxol to drip slower into me. This means a longer infusion. And when I finish that round up, the clinic is about to close so they have to take me over to the inpatient floor to administer the Carboplatin. The belly juice! Yes, there were a couple of snafoo's getting that chemo up to the floor (It has to be ordered from the pharmacy and it was somewhere between them and us for a LONG time.) it was dripping away like it should with no problems. When that is in followed by a bag of saline (about an hour total) I then have to spend the next 2 hours laying on my right side, then my left, then my feet higher than my head, then my head higher than my feet. I suggested we speed up sloshing the stuff around by me simultaneously doing jumping jacks and hula-hooping. No takers. 

That makes my first experience with chemotherapy. We left our house  at 9:30 in the morning and we got home at 11 pm. I think this worked out all of the kinks and they know how my body works just a little bit better. Fortunately, I don't have to do the 2 chemo regimen every week. For the next 2 weeks I just get the "Swimming in warm water one" and we will hope to avoid that experience in the future. I like my anti nausea medication. It keeps me feeling pretty normal. So far, I'm just tired. I've been a mother for 11 years, what's new.