On The First Day of Chemo My Oncologist Gave To Me....

A crazy long day, and boy was it ever.  But my team took great care of me through it all.

Everything was running a little behind right from the start.  It happens in the afternoon, so I just kind of rolled with it.  I got back to my infusion cube right around 2:30.  And as I'm prone to do, with in about 5 minutes I was settled in for a nap.  I have been using an app called Pzizz, which pretty much knocks me out.  And I hadn't really slept great, so I popped in my headphones and just relaxed.  At one point, I heard over my head phones "We're still waiting on Ms. Mink's medication, can you give us an ETA?"  By time I got around to opening my eyes, a representative from the pharmacy was visiting me to let me know what was going on.  A higher dose of my meds then was normally given on the first dose was ordered, and they had needed to run down my doctor to get her to re-write my prescription.  They will not pre-make my meds, so I expected there to be a time lapse, but this was longer then normal. They had just gotten the revised prescription, and were making up my dose.  Cool, shouldn't be that long. 

After Ms. Pharmacist left, my favorite nurse from my last go around with infusion stopped by to make sure I was doing okay, and check and see how my mom and my one sister (He spoke to both several times last time around) were.  I told them both were fine, and that he'd probably see my mom before I would, since he was leaving for the day soon and she was chilling out in the waiting room.  She had gone out to get lunch, and at this point, my only regret was that I hadn't asked her to bring me something.  Because I'd already gone through the snacks in my chemo bag, and I was pretty much starting.  Well, bless my fave nurse, because he says to me "I'm pretty sure we still have some wraps around here, would you want one?"  Seriously, it was like the angels were singing.  I was all about food, and Steven hooked me up. Not only that, I got a couple of cranberry juice cups to go with food.  It was perfect!  I really couldn't ask for me. 

Except to get things rolling.  My Meds showed up just after my sandwich wrap did.  And they went to hook me up, and there was some sort of problem with the instructions.  Everyone was doing math, and I got to be weighed again and once again, the pharmacy was called.  I still am not quite sure what was going on, but finally things got rolling.  The first med was a 90 minute infusion, then the second one is another hour.  It was after 4:00 at this point, so I knew it was going to be a long night.

Long enough that my poor mother was the last one in the waiting room and they turned the lights off of her.  She has never come back to my cube, because she doesn't want me to feel like I need to entertain her and she wants me to be able to sleep or do whatever.  I think she also doesn't want to see me all hooked up, which is totally understandable.  But someone went and grabbed her so she wasn't in a dark waiting room and she rode out the last hour and a half of my treatment with me. 

We managed to leave after our friends the valet's closed.  Mom ran and got the car just before they shut down, so that we didn't have to wait forever while security tried to run the car down.  It was weird to walk out of there with all the clinics dark, but I wasn't the last one to leave.  There was one other patient left in the infusion lab that was being worked on.  Even though it was a Wednesday, it seems to be a Monday in medical land.  The other patient had 2 of her veins collapse during her treatment, and her chemo had bled out into her arm.  They were trying to make a couple of little cuts and get the majority of it out, but she was going to have to come back for additional treatment the next day.  Guess I got lucky with just running behind.

Today was pretty good.  I needed a nap, but that is to be expected.  Fatigue is a major side effect, and really one of the easier ones to deal with.  A 2 hour nap and I was good to go.  I have had a couple of other side effects to deal with, but nothing that I couldn't manage.  I didn't need to take any medications for it, so I'm just taking it as it comes.  Tomorrow, I'm hoping to be able to say the same.  I even went out to visit with my sister, niece & nephews.  It was a half hour, but it was still a half hour outside of the house.  Already a better day after treatment then I had the last time around.  I'm going to enjoy the good times, deal with the bad times and hopefully will be able to return to work on Monday.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that.