it's 4:30pm. i'm in the bendat centre, attached to but not part of sjog hospital. there's a drip into the back of my hand, saline and drugs are dripping into my vein. i'm typing with one finger, the other hand has the drip so i dont like to move it too much.
yes, chemo has started :-)
===
the day starts -- for me -- at 7am. up, breakfast, do a load of washing. then we go shopping.
a few groceries. coffee and cake. bread and home.
i have an early lunch, soon after 10am. a leftover meal which tasted a lot better when it was freshly made. then it's off to see the cancer doc at 11:45.
the doc has added another blood test, so i'll need to give more blood, sometime today. she also confirms that i will be having three (or four?) three-week treatment cycles. then a pet scan to see if it has worked. oh? oh well.
each cycle is one week of daily drip-feeding of drugs, followed by two weeks where i get drip chemo on the monday.
oh, and how am i feeling about all of this?
for the last few days i have been feeling fine. ready to take the drugs and deal with the side effects. accepting that it needs to be done, believing that side effects can't be all that bad.
the memory of pain is less than the pain itself. this seems to also apply to chemo side-effects: the memory of them is not as bad as they actually were... at least, i believe that they were really awful, i also now believe that they were not all that bad...
so i'm not too worried. until this morning.
the cat meows, i growl back. the washing blows into a bush, i curse the bush. i mumble and grumble. looking forward to the day? not at all.
===
the doc doesn't have much more to say. we walk across to the ivy clinic... and something finally clicks.
one side of the corridor is doctors' rooms, the other side is treatment rooms. the treatment rooms are full of people sitting round having anti-cancer drugs pumped into their veins. pumped in via intravenous drip... i-v drip... ivy clinic! brilliant :-)
i check above the door. yes, it really is "ivy clinic". brilliant :-) i laugh. several times. my day is made. my mood is positive again.
===
pause in typing. a new challenge. back soon...
===
some things add an extra challenge when one hand is connected by a tube to a machine which is plugged into a power point. and i don't like to flex the hand with the cannula connected to the tube...
going to the toilet is an extra challenge.
===
there's no room in the ivy clinic, i'll be in a hospital room upstairs. the room is being cleaned. meanwhile, a bit of paperwork.
the check-in chick is cheerful. perky, even. we agree (we: deb is with me)... we agree that essential selection criteria must include the ability to be permanently friendly and cheerful. nice woman :-) all the ivy people seem to be cheerful.
my ivy clinic appointment is for 12:30. paperwork done by 1:00. into the room by... 2:00.
it' a private hospital room with bed and private ensuite. i take off my shoes, get up on the bed. deb agrees that i should have worn socks which do not have a hole in each heel. one sock also has contrast colour darning. the height of authentic grunge fashion :-)
time to place an order for dinner and breakfast... i'm not here overnight, i won't want breakfast. if i'm lucky, dinner will arrive before i'm heading home. scrambled eggs sound good, it's not long since my early lunch.
===
a bit more waiting. then a nurse reads me my rights... okay, she reads the key bits of the list of drugs and possible side effects. and what to do if the side effects occur. that takes 15 to 20 minutes.
eventually... the nurse inserts a cannula, attaches a tube. i'm ready to drip. (attaches? attachs? no spell checker on the tablet) (later, proofreading at home: attaches. good, what I thought.)
but wait, i'm meant to have a blood sample taken first... no, okay, that can be done later. (5:30. blood sample still not taken.)
finally... the nurse goes out, returns with a purple trolley, purple raincoat, purple gloves. this is the chemotherapy kit, colour coded purple.
raincoat and gloves: these drugs are cytotoxic, they kill cells. not just cancer cells. nurses don't want it splashed onto their skin. so, raincoat and gloves.
then the machine which pumps the drip turns off. again. i press the nurse button. a nurse appears, gets it started again. second time so far.
===
===
dinner arrives. lucky i ordered it ! scrambled eggs, salad, creamed rice, all pleasantly bland. i could have eaten twice as much but i'm not really hungry.
when all this started -- eighteen months ago -- my drug list included "dex", a steroid. good for treating the bruises of surgery. also -- unfortunately -- it increases appetite. i gained 5kg which i still carry. and i have converted some muscle to lighter but bulkier fat. my clothes are noticeably snug.
i'm looking forward to one of the expected side effects of this lot of chemo: loss of appetite and loss of weight.
and the very first drug (other than the cancer fighting drugs) is dex... so i already have an excuse for not losing weight. and, possibly, a real reason to buy new clothes :-)
===
as the drip is starting -- it stops. it's not dripping easily into my vein. nurse says, the cannula is almost on top of a valve in the vein, this slows -- and stops -- the drip. nurse phones another nurse. what shall i do? she asks. oh, okay, i'll try that.
did she say to pull the cannula back out a bit? i ask. oh, um, yes, replies the nurse.
undo all the sticky bandages. adjust the cannula. deb says, it's dripping. it's stopped again. it's... etc. the nurse sticks it all down again. we're on chemo ...
there's a starter bag of saline. a bag of chemo, another saline. a bag of (i think) two of the chemo. possibly more saline... lots of saline to help my kidneys flush the chemo. while one of the chemo drugs attacks the kidneys.
by the time the first drip bag is dripping, it's time for deb to leave. she's heard all the scary stuff. watched me not watching the cannula. now deb has to pick up our grandson from daycare.
===
i spend the next several hours typing this blog. and eating dinner, lucky i placed an order. going to the toilet 3 or 4 times, it's a lot of drip going in. calling the nurse, each of the three or four times that the drip pump has stopped pumping and started beeping.
there's a nursing change of shift. "nurse" now means" one of the new nurses". everyone believes that i am here all day & all night, all week. i keep insisting that i will be home tonight, back again -- in ivy clinic -- tomorrow at 8am. it seems a bit soon. i hope / wonder if there is a compulsory minimum time between doses?
===
nurse says, there must be at least four hours between repeat doses of chemo. she goes off to organise a later time for tomorrow at ivy clinic. 6:30 no confirmation yet.
i phone deb. tell her i won't be ready for pickup till after 8. i'll phone again at 8, anyway. yes, i say, you will need to put out the bins. no, i say, no need to take in the washing. deb would just grab it off the line, not fold anything. sigh...
===
now i'm sitting, half lying, listening to the i-v pump happily pumping. sun has set. blog typed, no wifi, i'll post it when i get home. okay, there is free hospital wifi, i may try to connect. though i may just get enough challenges from another one-handed trip to the toilet. tomorrow, definitely no belt !
also, tomorrow, i think i shall bring a recharger. for this tablet and for the phone. so much to say, so little battery power to say it...
===
mood: now that i have started the chemo, i feel so much better :-)
aside: pump is beeping again. perhaps, this time, the drug bag has been dripped dry. i press the nurse call button. and wait.
nurse one did say, press three times to make it an urgent call to a nurse with a phone. each time the pump stops it adds 5 or 10 minutes to the time i need to be here. but it is not really urgent.
so, mood: it's like a fun run. i'm all tense and nervous, for a day or two before. even worse on the actual day... until i reach the start area. and then i am calm, not in a great hurry. confident that i will finish. eventually.
7:30 and i am calm. not nervous.
dratted bags of saline... heading to the toilet again...
===
back again.
confident-ish. i have a cannula. i have had several bags of saline and drugs. i have not yet collapsed due to nasty side-effects. all so easy ! and i'm not really thinking, yeah, easy... so far. speaking of side effects:
before the drip even started i had to swallow a pill. anti nausea, says nurse. anti chunder and shits, i think to myself. i manage to swallow the pill, a skill i achieved only when cancer led me to a six pill a day regime.
nurse did name the pill, i forget the name. but it was *not* kytril, an ill-omened anti-nausea drug which drug me down to the battle of constipation vs diarrhoea. not kytril, yes good :-)
so, mood: i have started the fun run. i may not feel great though, so far so good. i'll get to the finish, sooner or later. feeling fit and well -- or not. i will finish. so :-)
===
this drug bag, nurse tells me, will be empty by 8pm. then one more bag, simple saline. minimum four hours from this chemo drug till the next bag of the same drug. tomorrow's drug deal has been rescheduled to 12 noon.
time to phone deb, arrange pick-up.
a long day. the next four days will be a mere four hours of drip... plus an hour or so of before-and-after. easy !
time to phone deb... to pick me up at 8:30. a long day. much easier for me, i'm just sitting here :-)
===
Home again :-) With easy Capital Letters !
8:30 Deb is waiting just inside the hospital main door. Excellent :-) She found a ten minute free parking spot, just outside. Easy. She drives me home.
Good to be home. Glad I'm not in hospital overnight ! The full week's hospital stay would, we agree, be convenient for patients who live a long way from the hospital. Certainly unsuitable for anyone married to Deb :-)
It's good to be home. And good to be able to sleep in tomorrow, for a 12 noon appointment.
==== Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
===
"If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution." … Einstein
===
dying for you to read my blog: notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au :-)
====
No comments:
Post a Comment