Tuesday, November 12 - Chemo Treatment #1
Going to work knowing that in 4 ½ hours your husband will
undergo his first chemo treatment is very difficult. I wasn’t sure what to expect during the
treatment and all my uncertainties and questions were on repeat in my head all
morning. Donny told me ahead of time
that he did some research and would be given 4 different drugs, but how? And when?
And how will they hook up to his port?
Will he feel the drugs immediately?
Will it hurt? How sick is Donny
going to be afterwards? How sick will he
be later in the week? When will he lose
his hair? I know we had talked to
Donny’s friend who had gone through chemo, but even he said that every person
is different, just like the nurses and Dr. P. said, health and strength depend
on the patient. So I still had a lot of
questions.
I should have done more research online. That seems to help Donny a lot. But every time I go online I end up reading
the bad stories that people post about how horrifying their experience was or
how someone they know died. I just can’t
stomach that. So, I went into this first
treatment blind. Well, maybe not
blind. I went into it with really blurry
vision that only bifocals (or the actual chemo experience in this case) could
cure.
As I said Tuesday, the process itself was different than I
imagined. I guess I thought Donny would
be ‘plugged in’ to an IV and sit there for 4 hours. But it was much more involved than that. Donny had labs done first, and then we got
called back into the treatment room. It
was nice because we got a room all to ourselves. All patients at Northwestern get their own
rooms for treatment. I thought this was
standard, but Mrs. Gelsomino was saying that when her mom was in treatment, she
was in one big open room with all the other patients being treated. I can’t imagine that would be good for your
psyche – seeing all the other people and how sick they look. And what happens when they don’t show up one
day? You ask the nurse, “Where’s Betty,
she’s always here at this time.” And the
nurse just looks at you with sadness in her eyes, and she doesn’t even need to
say the words because you know Betty has passed away. I’m VERY thankful for our private rooms.
Anyway, after we were taken to the room a nurse came by with
the Mobile EKG Unit. She asked us to
leave the room so there wouldn’t be any distractions. The test took about 15 minutes. Mrs. Gel and I popped our heads in the room
when the test was done and couldn’t help laughing a bit. Donny was lying flat on the bed with no
pillows with wires connected to his bare chest, neck, arms and legs. He looked like the man in the game Operation.
After the EKG, our nurse, Cheryl, came back in the room to
get the treatment started. She explained
each drug very thoroughly (see below for drug information) and discussed the
large range of side effects for each of the 4 drugs:
Chemotherapy Drugs (click the links to read more about these
drugs):
It looks like red Kool-Aid. The nurse said this is the ‘bad one’ and if
we remember just one thing about chemo, it should be that Donny received the
red drug. This drug is one of the worst
ones and a person can only get a certain amount of it in his/her lifetime. So if we move across the world and Donny gets
sick, the most important thing to tell the doctors is that he had the red chemo
drug at one point in his life. It’s one of the only drugs that is this color,
so the doctors should know what we’re talking about. Donny had the EKG and the Echo tests because
of this drug.
Fun/Disturbing fact about Bleo (nick-name for
this drug): This is the only drug that Lance Armstrong refused when he was
going through chemo because it can cause severe breathing problems and/or cystic
fibrosis.
Naturally, when the nurse told us
this, I felt my heart skip a beat. I was
trying to stay composed because Donny and his mom were there and I just had to
keep it together. But in my head I was
screaming, “Holy crap! Are you kidding
me? Donny has horrible asthma and is
allergic to pretty much everything, and this drug could make his breathing
problems worse? There’s no way he’s
taking this drug – F this!” Then the
rational side of my brain chimed in and reminded me that this drug isn’t really
negotiable if I want Donny to completely recover. So I turned off the screaming and calmly told
the nurse about Donny’s already bad breathing issues. She smiled and said she knows, she read the
charts and that most likely he’ll be fine, but she has to tell us about all the
side effects. Really helpful...thanks. The pulmonary (lung) test that Donny had was
for this drug.
This drug causes severe constipation which Donny
has additional medication to prevent.
This drug can also cause Peripheral neuropathy (numbness of the hands
and feet).
This drug isn’t too bad, the main side effect is
nausea. Donny also has great anti-nausea pills to take to prevent the
nausea. Tingling of the hands and feet
is also a side effect. Donny did
experience tingling in his right hand the first day, but it went away by
Wednesday.
When Cheryl was done explaining the drugs, side effects and
so on, she began administering the drugs.
The Bleo was administered first to make sure he didn’t have a reaction
to it. It was given through a syringe
that she stuck in Donny’s upper arm. The
second was the Adriamycin that was administered through the port in Donny’s
chest. I apologize, I was so overwhelmed
with the whole process that I forgot to take a picture of what the port looks
like when the IVs are in it. Next
time...
It was strange watching the red Kool-Aid flow through the IV
tube and into Donny’s chest. If you came
into the room late, you would have thought the nurse was giving Donny
blood. But it was the chemo, not
blood. As I’m writing this, I realized,
the thing that was most different than I anticipated was the way the nurse
administered the drugs. I thought all
the chemo would be in one IV bag that just hung there connected to Donny’s
port. But actually, the Bleo and the Adriamycin
were administered manually through syringes (one with a needle in his arm, and
one that connected to the IV in the port).
The other two were administered through IV bags.
All in all, it was a pretty simple process. It didn’t take as long as I thought. And they even left us with a packet of
directions, all spelled out on when Donny needs to take which medications (he
has additional prescriptions: anti-fungal, anti-bacterial anti-nausea, etc.) and
directions on what to do if Donny experiences severe symptoms:
Call your doctor if:
Fever of 100.5 degrees or higher à
Must go to ER
Uncontrolled nausea/vomiting/diarrhea
Pain or burning with urination
Develop sores/white coating in your mouth
Hopefully we won't have to call our doctor about any of these symptoms, but it's nice to have.
Hopefully we won't have to call our doctor about any of these symptoms, but it's nice to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment