maddy

Chemo 2: the process continues

So Chemo session 2 happened, and with it some good news. First, the great galumphing lumpy lymph nodes around the back of my head and down the side of my neck have retreated to their former lissome almost invisible selves. Second, my haemoglobin counts went *up* (9.5), suggesting there is now a little bit of room in my bone marrow to make blerrrrd.

The usual administrative snafus: they didn't have the Daunorubicin available at the onc's office, so I had to go over to the Bodine Cancer Center. There awaited a nice pink chair and a blankie, a nice big bottle of saline drip for hydration, the anti-emetic (Zofiran), and my two doses of chemo. The bit I dreaded was accessing the port in my chest: last time both insertion and removal of that one inch long needle *hurt*. These women had done this stuff before: it was relatively painless, with just the Oncology Nurse mantra of "Sorry, honey", as they inserted it and it hurt just a little. Removal -- a yelpyelp procedure last time in hospital -- was completely without discomfort.

So I settle in to my chair, trying to avoid the ubiquitous TVs, all playing Ellen deGeneris' talk show, and they administered the saline and the Zofiran. Unfortunately, some line of the order had not been cosigned, and the nurses said they couldn't administer chemo without it. So there I sat for the next four hours, waiting.

Thank ghod for Harry Potter and for naps.

Turns out that the anti-emetic works quite a bit better when administered one hour before chemo than four hours before chemo…. But nothing too bad. Felt well enough to walk a few blocks and take the bus home.

All in all a Good Cancer Day today.

Posted by maddy at October 20, 2003 01:36 AM