The First Round of Treatment: Part 1

Today markes 11 days since my first chemo treatment, and boy and I glad I waited to blog about everything that happened until today.  These past few days have really been a roller coaster ride but I have now come full circle and can say that I am absolutely ready to do it all again.....not that I would choose to but I am ready.

Day 1: Day of Chemo
I was ready I went into the treatment center accompanied by my mom and best friend Allison.  They drew some blood, I met with my doctor (and PA and nurse navigator...they really gave me a send off) and then went to get hooked up.

I didn't realize until after the fact that they spent the first hour and fifteen minutes pumping me up with anti-nausea meds and steroids.  The actual chemo only took about 40 minutes.  The first chemo drug, the red one, was pushed into the IV over the course of 10 minutes.  This particular drug is the one that causes most of the nasty side effects, specifically hair loss.  The second drug was put in a drip for 30 minutes.  I did start to feel a little funny sitting there but who knows if that was the drug or just me being crazy.

My other bestie, Ashley, joined up at some point and I think that we were the rowdy corner of the room.  We laughed and talked and pretty much acted like we were out to dinner....not getting chemo.

I left the cancer center feeling pretty good.  Mom and I headed to lunch.  After that I was still feeling pretty good and went to see about getting Britton some indoor soccer shoes.  After all, I am still and mom and there are errands to be run.  After about 20 minutes in the store I started to feel a bit off and decided we needed to head home.

I got home and immediately went to bed.  I dozed on and off until it was time to go to Tucker's 6th birthday party.  I had booked the party several weeks before at DefyGravity.  They were taking care of everything and I just needed to make an appearance.  My family and friends were pretty much covering the party and I felt like I just needed to be there for a little bit of time.  In hindsight, that was a bad idea.  I am not sure if it was getting up and out or the 2 bites of birthday cake that I ate, but by the time I got home I was feeling horrible.  I had taken nausea medication #1 (there is an entire color coded spreadsheet for the 3 take home anti-nausea medications)  before the party as a preventative.  I took med #2 when I got home and it knocked me completely out!  Thank goodness.

Day 2: The Day After

This is the day that I expected to be awful.  I had heard from people that the day after chemo is the worst.  I slept most of the day, drank as much as I could and ate when I should.  I was basically horizontal the entire day.  I was a bit queezy but did not need any of my meds.

Day 3: The Sun Peeks through

I spent most of the morning and early afternoon on the couch in and out of sleep.  By the afternoon I was feeling a little bit better and could stay awake longer.  I got up and few times and even took a short walk.  I was moving around when a sweet friend brought dinner.  After that I had had enough and went back to bed.  In the middle of the night I woke up feeling pretty bad and took some meds to get back to sleep.

On these couple days I mostly felt extremely tired.  I was really like being pregnant times 10.  The nausea was not so bad but I really had to think like a pregnant person about it.  If I felt sick I ate, when I woke up I had a cracker before moving.  Food was my key.  It really didn't seem logical to eat when my stomach felt upset but that was the key.  The nausea was not going to pass, I had to help it go away.

My head also had the strangest feeling these couple days.  It felt like my brain was 3 times as heavy in my skull as normal.  I really would have appreciated someone just carrying around my head for me becuase it felt almost too much to do.  My eyelids were also VERY heavy.  At one point I remember telling either my kids of my mom, I can still hear you and want to talk with you but I really need to do it with my eyes closed.  It was so weird.  I had been told I would be tired, but for someone that regularly goes on 6 or so hours of sleep and barely sits down to eat during the day this was crazy.  I could not even muster the strength to watch TV and reading, even a magazine article, seemed next to impossible.

Day 4 & 5:  The headache sets in

And when I say headache I mean killer headache.  I have come to appreciate that it was probably a combination of the cold turkey on the caffeine (I was drinking two BIG cups of coffee in the morning and having a sweet tea every afternoon) and the steroids that probably did me in.  The pounding in my temples and behind my eyes was awful.  For these days the headaches was what was giving me the nausea.  I was so sure that if I could get ride of the headache I would feel fine, a little tired but fine.   Take some Advil you might say, well I thought of that but didn't want to take too much because of my already sensitive stomach.  I did try but it didn't seem to help.

During the days after chemo, I did try very hard to eat and drink.  I didn't want much.  I ate mostly potatoes and beef barley soup.  I listened to my body and ate what it was craving.  That absolutely did not include any sweets at all....sort of sad.  I didn't really want fruits of veggies either (both staples before).  I was a meat and potatoes girl for a few days and I was going to go with it.

Looking back, all in all that first week was ok.  I am not sure that I would have told you that going through it but now with perspective I can look back and say that it was ok.

On about Thursday I did start to get pretty down on myself and starting thinking ahead and got a little bit scared.  I started to think.  OMG I have to do this again.....how am I going to do this again....I have to do this 7 MORE TIMES!  I guess I thought that by Friday I would be back to sort of normal and feel much better than I did, but I didn't.  I was getting worried that I was not going to make it.  The headaches were still there and I thought they might not go away.  The tiredness was crazy and I thought that might be forever too.

BUT, just 5 days later I am back to my old self and doing GREAT!!!!!!  I would dare to say that I might even feel better today than I did 2 weeks ago.  I know what to expect.  I know what it going to happen.  And most importantly, I know that I will be back to my old self if I give it enough time!  I am so happy that I would love to go and have a martini....sadly I can not because of the mouth sores, but more on that in another post.