Wednesday 2 December 2015

First round of chemo done.

I'm still a bit out of it from the Benedryl but I thought I would do a quick update as I know many people are wondering what's been happening. I hope this makes sense. My mind is a bit hazy.

I was moved over to the VG yesterday afternoon and after some confusion with the rooms, I was sent to the bone marrow transplant ward (BMT) which is way nicer than the general hematology rooms. There are more staff and everything is super quiet. It's been pretty good.

Nothing eventful happened yesterday, just all the standard admitting paperwork, questions, and confusion.

Things got moving today. I had a MUGA scan early afternoon to determine if my heart would handle the chemo drugs. The test involved being injected with some radioactive crap and then laying under a scanner for 20 minutes. It was not hard. Turns out my heart is working just fine so they were able to give me the full amount of one of the medications.

After the MUGA scan, they started my chemo treatment. It started with a solid dose of Benadryl which made me both jittery and sleepy at the same time. Not a pleasant combination. The nurse then ran the Rituximab (the med that I was initially going to just be getting) very slowly to make sure I didn't react, I didn't. Eventually the sleepiness of the Benadryl won over the jitteriness and I slept for a few hours, waking up every half hour when my vitals needed to be checked.

After the Rituximab, I was given the three actual chemo meds. They didn't take as long as the Rituximab which was nice. One was pink and injected directly, the other two were a longer infusion but ran through pretty quick.

I'll explain more about everything tomorrow when I'm feeling less foggy but just wanted to let everyone know that I had my first dose of chemo and I'm feeling okay right now. They're pretty intense about preemptively giving me lots of anti-nausea meds which is excellent. The last thing I need right now is to be throwing up.

3 comments:

Nadine B said...

Is super wonderful that they are getting on this as quick as possible - the sooner treatments are done, the better. Hopefully the nausea will not hit, the bleeding eases - and you can go home between treatments.
I sure hear lots of cheering for you from our neck of the woods.....hope it helps!! Nadine B

helen soucoup said...

Thanks for updating, been wondering how it was all going. We are hoping for a FAST response, shrinking the tumours and that you can tolerate the meds. Sending lots of love!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the updates and you are a strong young lady so hopefully the chemo starts working fast. lots of prayer and hugs going your way