One down...?? More to Go!

Phew! That was a doozy!! For being low dose I sure have felt like crud!

Let's rewind....Scott and I arrived on Tuesday at 11:30 and waited in the waiting room for about an hour..ugh! Maria is the chemo nurse and we love her. She tells us everything and is just really nice. Once we entered the infusion room I was bombarded with fear and anxiety. There were about 7 or 8 patients in there already hooked up to the IVs. Not one of them was younger than 70 years old or so. They were old and frail and sick. How did I end up in a place like this?!?

Before we started anything she asked if I had taken my anti-nausea medication. I had not and I have two different prescriptions so she walked me through the one I should take before treatments. It should last for 12 hours. The other should be taken after the 3rd day.

The nurse set up IV drip with sodium chloride and went to the other room to get the chemo drugs. Once about half the IV bag was gone she injected the methotrexate (bright yellow) into my IV and followed with Vebane (clear). I felt a bit light headed but nothing major. If I wasn't hypersensitive to every sensation, I might have not noticed.

She turned the IV back on to flush the chemo through my system. Once the IV bag was empty I was free to go! It was fairly quick. The IV was uneventful and I was actually kind of hungry. I was afraid the hunger wouldn't last so we picked up a sandwich for the way home.

I was only feeling tired when I got home, so I went to bed. I expected that, the nurse warned me about fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. That was to come later. A few hours later the nausea came. It never resulted in vomiting but it was pretty bad.

Side effects to expect were all present. I have just taken it very slow, listened to my body and tried to pick up and get ready for round number 2. The nurse did have a few things to tell me that I didn't already know...don't eat lettuce or other thin skinned foods that I don't wash thoroughly myself at home (do not eat these foods prepared elsewhere), flush the toilet twice to rid evidence of chemo waste (toxic toilet we call it at home :-), mouth sores WILL happen (and started to already), and lose of appetite.

It's been 2 1/2 days and things are getting better. Life goes on, the kids still have practice, homework and band! Pick up and move on...I expect next week will be worse...Let's hope I am wrong but this is for the birds!!