First round of chemotherapy

 Thursday 18th, both the day I’d been hoping would hurry up and dreading!  Putting poison into your system goes against every fibre of my being.

I arrive at Wonford for 10am, debating whether I need to mask up or not, so unclear on when’s best and how much they actually work! First point of call is having a picc line put in, a what you say?! Well because of the toxicity of the breast cancer drugs there is a high chance of burning veins and leaking into surrounding tissue if done through a cannula in the hand, permanently damaging the area.  A vascular nurse performs this procedure, I did shed a few tears when I go in, it’s all so overwhelming.  She reassures me it won’t hurt and is extremely kind and patient explaining that they use a local anaesthetic to numb the area and a ultrasound to guide the permanent tube into an artery that goes into the chest via the vein just inside the bicep.  This will be my permanent port for receiving treatment and blood work.  It didn’t hurt at all and was quite straight forward.

Next I’m taken through to my seat where I meet the chemotherapy nurses.  Everyone is very kind and friendly.  They attach my port to a machine.  I have strongly mentioned my issues with nausea in general situations (hangovers and after general anaesthetic), so a tablet anti sickness drug is given first, then an intravenous anti sickness and steroid drugs.  Once these have all gone through my prescription of chemotherapy drugs are brought through.  I am having four rounds of EC first, these are two combined drugs, epirubicin and cyclophosphamide.  So my first round is given to me and no allergic reactions, so that is positive.  

I’m given more anti sickness drugs and steroids to take for next 3 days, reducing each day and pre filled needles to start injecting myself from Saturday afternoon for 7 days to promote the production on white blood cells!  I hate needles, so this is going to be really interesting! I’d normally look away! But if I do that I could stab my hand instead of belly fat!  Have alternate people on hand if I can’t do it!

So home I go, I go for a short walk as feel fine.  Getting closer to 5pm and started to get headache and nausea!  Tried some soup but nope, horrible!  Took some paracetamol!  Didn’t really do anything so took myself to bed!  Breathing techniques to get through these issues!  Had another anti sickness (I think)  at 9pm and my antidepressant.  Managing to control up until I started getting tired around 10pm.  Waves of headache and nausea!  3 bouts of trying to be sick and thankfully 3 bouts of bowel clearance which helped much more! TMI for some of you I’m sure! But I’m an over-sharer!  Actually then settled down and woke feeling mostly ok, bit jaded, but mostly ok.

Friday morning goes by ok, manage a healthy breakfast and soup for lunch, starving by dinner time, so actually managed a big meal.  Went for walk with Jacob and dogs, answered some assessment questions on my course.  Concentration a bit slow!  Not as tired as I thought I’d be!  Off to bed and hopefully a good nights sleep.