My first Chemo treatment!

Yikes. I don't recall being this nervous in a long time. I was nervous and scared about not knowing what was to come. I was thinking the other day about how I liked having a schedule and knowing what my days were going to look like ie: wake up, play with Daphne, go to work, etc.


Today on the other hand was different. At 10:30am I met with the Oncologist to ask some final questions and get a little bit more info. I asked him what the percentage was of recurrence of breast cancer once Chemo is done. He said 25%. With Chemo that percentage goes to 20%. After taking Tamoxifen for five years he said that we can talk about "throwing me into early menopause" to decrease my risk of getting breast cancer again.


After meeting with him I went to the back of the office to have my labs done. I realized today that I really do not like being poked with needles. They drew my blood and in less than five minutes had the results. They tested my blood counts. The doc said they were good. I found out that I will NOT have to go back weekly to do labs. I will do labs before each Chemo treatment. I was very pleased with this info!


From there I walked over to Ambulatory Care. It was one large room with lots of mini rooms divided by curtains. Very noisy! My plan was to sleep the whole time but there was lots of people coming and going and lots of tv noises from the other mini rooms. You could even hear the doctor talking to the patient in the next mini room and the nurses gabbing away across from the mini rooms.



Chemo took forever today! I guess the Pharmacy can not start mixing the Chemo until the doctor signs off on it and he can only do that once he sees the lab results. So, I sat around with an IV in my hand for three hours waiting for the Pharmacy to mix the Chemo. Since I was nervous this really bothered me. And I guess it bothered me because my appointment was at 11:30 and they didn't start the Chemo until 2:30pm! I was done by 4:30pm.

The only side effects I am feeling so far are: Metallic taste in my mouth and my feet feel a little bit swollen. The nurses told me to take my anti nausea meds starting tonight to be on the safe side. About five of them stood around my mini room telling me how important this was...so I will take their advice! They also reminded me to complain, complain, complain. I have been become very good at this over the last three months and promised them that I would continue.



The best part of the day was my box lunch! The steroids make me hungry. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup, milk and vanilla pudding. They surprised me with a diet coke, too. Very exciting. Yes. I still love hospital food.



My next Chemo date is set for Wednesday, Feb. 18th at 10am. I am going to request that they do the labs first so that the doc. can sign off on it so that the Pharmacy can start mixing away so that I don't have to wait three hours again!



Thanks for reading.

Love,



Judy