Chemo III Day One Report

So far there isn't much to report about day 1 and that is good news. I arrived at the hospital around 8:00 AM and was put into a separate room for this chemo treatment. No... its not that I am such a difficult patient they wanted isolate me. :-) The setup at the hospital is that they have a few chemo chairs that are separated by privacy screens and actually given a good amount of space. They also all have TVs and of course the WiFi connection. In addition to those areas they have a room off of the chemo area that can be used to put a bed in if needed for patients that may require a bed or additional procedures. I also think I saw a prisoner being treated in there once. Today there wasn't any situations that required that room and since I was probably going to be there all day they gave it to me. It was nice because I was able to spread out my stuff and not have to keep getting in and out of the chair to get it. I also have to say that the people at the hospital were very nice and accommodating as always. They were right there with me hoping for the correct blood count so the treatment could go ahead. That was nice because I really was concerned about not being able to go ahead today.

I seem to be bringing more and more stuff with me to these appointments. Today I had my normal "cancer bag" stuff that includes all my paperwork since the start, notes and prescription info along with the log of my feedings and drug usage. Then because I was going to be there all day I had to bring my feeding stuff with me and that includes the drugs I needed to take during the day, the plastic syringe that I use to set up the feedings and a few other miscellaneous items.

Then on the electronics side I have my notebook computer and today I brought my iPod Touch that I used for the first posting from the hospital. This lets me get some work done while I am there even if it is just reading up on some technology articles.

The treatment pretty much went off with out a hitch. There was one point that I did have the dry heaves during the day but I thing that was from swallowing too much mucus. My throat has started to feel a bit better or at least to the point where I can talk more than one word answers if I use the spray bottle to keep my mouth moist. I think I over did it in the morning because not much later I had the dry heaves. Lasted about 5 minute and then I was fine. Its the same thing that occasional happens at night when I get up and the mucus all rushes down the back of my throat. Aside from that everything went well and I was ready to head back home at 3 in the afternoon. One effect that did hit me was tiredness. I napped a bit when I got back home and then went to sleep around 9:00. I don't normally set an alarm for the meds because as a rule I never sleep more than a few hours without waking up. In this case I slept straight through to 3 in the morning. Needless to say I will have to catch up on some feedings on Tuesday to make up for it. Still it felt nice to sleep that long.

Everything else is going fine. I am curious to see what the impact of this chemo will be. The first one was the worst. Part of that was due to the abdominal pain caused by constipation on the day of chemo and part of it was due to the shifting pressure in the sinus region as the chemo and radiation started to do their stuff. Also it took about a week to get dialed in on the nausea medicine. With the second chemo I was still in the first week of using the feeding tube and there were some adjustment issues to having the all liquid diet along with getting enough feedings. Still the impact wasn't too bad. With this treatment I have the feeding tube stuff dialed in, the pain and nausea medicine is all set and now the radiation treatment is actually different. Also there are only two radiation treatments left. (Big time Yippee! on that one) So for most of the recovery time for time for this chemo I will not be getting radiation treatment. Taken all together I am hoping that this chemo treatment will have the least amount of impact.

One last thing to note is that fatigue as a side effect hasn't really come back since the first treatment. I do get tired but then I just sleep. Fatigue was feeling tired but not being able to sleep. Hopefully the trend will continue and fatigue will stay away this time.

BTW did I mention that there are only two more radiation treatments left to go? Yippee!