Chemo Infusion 4: Counting My Blessings
As I started the car this morning to head to San Francisco, the rising sun hit the rhinestone awareness ribbon on my black T-shirt and cast sparkly lights all over the steering wheel and dashboard. For a moment, I didn't know what was causing it and thought, "Wow, this is like a cheap SciFi effect." Ha!
When I saw the nurse practitioner, she asked about how I was doing with the steroids that I have to take before and after the infusion. I told her how it was hard to sleep and I was cranky, but I had heard from some women that it makes them aggressive, and so at least THAT didn't happen to me. She told me that she knew a couple of patients who had to be hospitalized for psychotic breaks triggered by the steroids. Can you IMAGINE? I mean, it's bad enough to have cancer and then have it trigger that?
By now I know that there is little that can be done about my side effects, so we just made sure that I had the medicine that I was going to need. Lately I have had a lot of back, shoulder, and neck pain no matter what I do. She nodded and said that was caused by the chemo. Since it is not responding to ibuprofen or Tylenol, she wanted to try Ultram. She also called in to the infusion center to let them know to give me another injection of Arinesp, since I'm still anemic.
I asked her what comes next, after this infusion. She said that I see her again in a few weeks for a chemotherapy follow-up and I start radiation as planned. Then I see the oncologist in October to talk about hormone treatment. I let her know that I was nervous about hormone treatment. She had the oncologist stop in briefly. The doctor recommended we make a longer appointment for October so that we have time to talk about it more.
Up at the infusion center, the nurse I had requested (from Chemo Infusion 2) was busy, so I was assigned to someone I didn't know. It turned out this nurse was really great. She was the polar opposite of Nurse Evil in every respect. She multitasked during the infusion (running some things simultaneously) and as a result we were able to finish by 4 pm. She also did the Arinesp injection so that it didn't hurt. It stung like the dickens last time, but this nurse said that the secret was bringing it to room temperature before injecting it. Clever!
We were put in a big room this time. The patient next to me seemed to have 3 or 4 visitors, all talking loudly the whole time. We were a bit squished into the corner by the trash and medical waste. Kathy kept worrying that something would get contaminated.
For some reason, the mitts and slippers froze colder than ever this time. Maybe it was a good batch of dry ice! You could see the frost form on the outer blue neoprene the moment I put the mitts on. Honestly, though, it was a form of torture to wear them. Through gritted teeth, I said to Kathy, "I will not talk! I will not talk!" I counted the minutes until we could take them off.
When the infusion machine beeped for the last time, signaling it was done, I thrust out my arm with the biggest grin so that the nurse could take out the IV.
I said, happily, "I'm done! Forever and EVER!" I wish I had confetti with me; I was just thrilled to not have to do this again. Yay!
Later, I was waiting in the lobby with the big ice chest while Kathy was getting the car. A woman in a turban who obviously went through chemo recently or is still doing it asked me if that was my lunch in the ice chest. I told her no, it was the hypothermia mitts and slippers that I'm using to hopefully ward off problems with my hands and feet, like nail changes.
She said, "You want to see nail changes?" Then she held out her hands. All her finger nails were dark brown. One was completely bandaged -- she explained the nails would get infected and that one had to be surgically removed. Now she has to keep visiting the wound clinic. Another nail was held on by tape alone. YIKES! But that wasn't all. She said that the adriamycin in her chemo mix had given her congestive heart failure, too.
Very sobering stuff and a good example of why I should not complain. While you can see white semi-circles in my fingernails for each infusion, my nails are pink and healthy. And my heart is just fine.
We headed home and I went into the bathroom to start using the Nystatin mouthwash early, before thrush started. Too late! Somehow the thrush returned before I even made it home and my tongue was white. How can that be? Oh, well.
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