March 13th, 2018 - First Chemo Treatment - It was an experience
So the 13th of March I got to have my first Chemo Infusion and so this is a little update as to what happened and how I managed.
When you first walk in the office for every visit you go let them draw out 2 – 3 vials of blood to make sure that you are well enough to have the procedure.
Never having had a chemo infusion, I was a bit nervous as you might imagine. What was going to happen? Was I going to get ill or one of the other horrible side effects? But I got to tell you Dr. McDuffie my oncologist said he didn’t expect that I would have many if any issues. His words were that I would be underwhelmed with the whole thing. He was right.
I sat down and the ran the needle into the Bard Power Port that I had surgically installed two weeks prior and it was breath in and breath out and that was done no pain. We put a Lidocaine cream on it an hour before the procedure which I am sure helped.
Then they put in some saline to flush the port and make sure it was flowing correctly. The Power Port is basically a direct line into the main artery into the heart from the neck. It is places only a portion of an inch above the top of the lung. It acts as the access point where the go in rather than putting an IV in each time which over the course of putting chemo in for a full run of 9 or so weeks could blow out the veins.
After the saline she put an anti nausea drug in the IV port and then flushed it again with saline.
Then they gave me the wonderful injection of thick warm 7 day anti nausea meds which is done with a needle in the stomach. Not pleasant but not terrible either. But if it keeps away the pukes for a week as planned then I’m okay with it.
Next they gave me liquid Benadryl at a very high dose. HIGH being the way it makes you feel. It was like a nice little 60s contact high. Slurring words feeling like Timothy Leary was going to appear. You know good times. Then they gave another saline flush.
After that comes the first round of chemo. By that time the Benadryl was doing its job and I was snuggled under a warm blanket going in and out of consciousness.
I assume they flushed the line again but the next thing I remember was them hooking up the second type of Chemo (I get two different ones every time).
It was time for another short nap. Then they were done and flushing out the line once again and making sure everything was still good and then it was breath in, breath out and the needle was out of the port and they were letting me out.
We got there about 9:45 am and we walked out on the way home at about 4 hours later. I was still groggy from the Benadryl and when I got home some intermittent naps were the order of the day.
So it was not at all an unpleasant day. I had been dreading it but the staff was wonderful and here we are now 38 hours removed from the start of the treatments as I write this and no nausea or unpleasant side effects. I think the Chemo has pissed off my tumor in my bladder because I’ve been peeing a lot of blood last night and a little today and that is going to get worse next week when we add the daily radiation into the mix along with more chemo on Wednesdays.
That’s going to be my life for the next 8 to 9 weeks. They want me to stay away from people to limit the possibility of germs. And then 8 – 12 weeks after the end of the sessions they want me in for scans and another wonderful
Cystoscopy to see what happened from the procedure and if the tumor has gone away or if they need to do anything else like more chemo or radiation.
I am obviously hoping that it goes away and stays the hell where ever it ends up and NEVER comes and visits again.
Our team of doctors has a handle on this and I know we have the right people on the war wagon to beat it and with them fighting and Warrior Donna pushing me and making me stay busy, healthy and positive. I don’t see how it can be anything less than a home run.
As near as it plans out now, last Radiation AND Chemotherapy should be on 5/9/2018 if I manage to remain healthy and no unforeseen issues from the treatment. Then tack on another 8 to 12 weeks until the recheck and we should be somewhere around 07/04/2018 or 08/01/2018 before we know whether it was a success.
So I hope that we can do the 8 weeks out (July 4th being Independence Day would be a great time to find out that your body has been freed from cancer).
A few things that you may not know about the chemo is that it makes you VERY susceptible to sun burns so you have to try and stay out of the sun. Since my treatments are an hour away then an hour back and we are going to be entering the sunny part of the year it may be interesting. But we’ll do what we have to do.
I’ll give another Greg update sometime during the first week of Radiation. Likely it will be the Saturday after the next Chemo. I will have two days of Radiation then I have radiation at 11:30 then the Chemo for 3.5 hours at 12:15 on that Wednesday and then two more days of Radiation so I should have the full effect of it and get an idea of what’s going to happen after a full week of treatments.
I have a feeling it’s going to knock me on my ass so I anticipate that Saturdays should be a good day to sit and vegetate in front of the PC and put down my thoughts. Then I can relax on Sunday before kicking in to week two of the same stuff.
Okay ya’ll that’s it from B.C.C. (Bladder Cancer Central) today, now let’s all get some sleep. The video below is ME doing a DEMONSTRATION VIDEO of how to take your INR at home. We do this EVERY THURSDAY SINCE MY STROKE 9 YEARS AGO!! We did it today and my numbers were good. We weren't sure if the CHEMO would mess with blood thickness but so far so good.
So the 13th of March I got to have my first Chemo Infusion and so this is a little update as to what happened and how I managed.
When you first walk in the office for every visit you go let them draw out 2 – 3 vials of blood to make sure that you are well enough to have the procedure.
Never having had a chemo infusion, I was a bit nervous as you might imagine. What was going to happen? Was I going to get ill or one of the other horrible side effects? But I got to tell you Dr. McDuffie my oncologist said he didn’t expect that I would have many if any issues. His words were that I would be underwhelmed with the whole thing. He was right.
I sat down and the ran the needle into the Bard Power Port that I had surgically installed two weeks prior and it was breath in and breath out and that was done no pain. We put a Lidocaine cream on it an hour before the procedure which I am sure helped.
Then they put in some saline to flush the port and make sure it was flowing correctly. The Power Port is basically a direct line into the main artery into the heart from the neck. It is places only a portion of an inch above the top of the lung. It acts as the access point where the go in rather than putting an IV in each time which over the course of putting chemo in for a full run of 9 or so weeks could blow out the veins.
After the saline she put an anti nausea drug in the IV port and then flushed it again with saline.
Then they gave me the wonderful injection of thick warm 7 day anti nausea meds which is done with a needle in the stomach. Not pleasant but not terrible either. But if it keeps away the pukes for a week as planned then I’m okay with it.
Next they gave me liquid Benadryl at a very high dose. HIGH being the way it makes you feel. It was like a nice little 60s contact high. Slurring words feeling like Timothy Leary was going to appear. You know good times. Then they gave another saline flush.
After that comes the first round of chemo. By that time the Benadryl was doing its job and I was snuggled under a warm blanket going in and out of consciousness.
I assume they flushed the line again but the next thing I remember was them hooking up the second type of Chemo (I get two different ones every time).
It was time for another short nap. Then they were done and flushing out the line once again and making sure everything was still good and then it was breath in, breath out and the needle was out of the port and they were letting me out.
We got there about 9:45 am and we walked out on the way home at about 4 hours later. I was still groggy from the Benadryl and when I got home some intermittent naps were the order of the day.
So it was not at all an unpleasant day. I had been dreading it but the staff was wonderful and here we are now 38 hours removed from the start of the treatments as I write this and no nausea or unpleasant side effects. I think the Chemo has pissed off my tumor in my bladder because I’ve been peeing a lot of blood last night and a little today and that is going to get worse next week when we add the daily radiation into the mix along with more chemo on Wednesdays.
That’s going to be my life for the next 8 to 9 weeks. They want me to stay away from people to limit the possibility of germs. And then 8 – 12 weeks after the end of the sessions they want me in for scans and another wonderful
Cystoscopy to see what happened from the procedure and if the tumor has gone away or if they need to do anything else like more chemo or radiation.
I am obviously hoping that it goes away and stays the hell where ever it ends up and NEVER comes and visits again.
Our team of doctors has a handle on this and I know we have the right people on the war wagon to beat it and with them fighting and Warrior Donna pushing me and making me stay busy, healthy and positive. I don’t see how it can be anything less than a home run.
As near as it plans out now, last Radiation AND Chemotherapy should be on 5/9/2018 if I manage to remain healthy and no unforeseen issues from the treatment. Then tack on another 8 to 12 weeks until the recheck and we should be somewhere around 07/04/2018 or 08/01/2018 before we know whether it was a success.
So I hope that we can do the 8 weeks out (July 4th being Independence Day would be a great time to find out that your body has been freed from cancer).
A few things that you may not know about the chemo is that it makes you VERY susceptible to sun burns so you have to try and stay out of the sun. Since my treatments are an hour away then an hour back and we are going to be entering the sunny part of the year it may be interesting. But we’ll do what we have to do.
I’ll give another Greg update sometime during the first week of Radiation. Likely it will be the Saturday after the next Chemo. I will have two days of Radiation then I have radiation at 11:30 then the Chemo for 3.5 hours at 12:15 on that Wednesday and then two more days of Radiation so I should have the full effect of it and get an idea of what’s going to happen after a full week of treatments.
I have a feeling it’s going to knock me on my ass so I anticipate that Saturdays should be a good day to sit and vegetate in front of the PC and put down my thoughts. Then I can relax on Sunday before kicking in to week two of the same stuff.
Okay ya’ll that’s it from B.C.C. (Bladder Cancer Central) today, now let’s all get some sleep. The video below is ME doing a DEMONSTRATION VIDEO of how to take your INR at home. We do this EVERY THURSDAY SINCE MY STROKE 9 YEARS AGO!! We did it today and my numbers were good. We weren't sure if the CHEMO would mess with blood thickness but so far so good.
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