Wednesday March 31st 2010: the day I started my chemo. Quite a momentous happening, if you're sitting where I am, but just another day at the coalface for everyone else, I suppose.
Donna (Mrs 365er) and I arrived at the unit at 8.50 am for a 9.00 start (oh, little did we know). I have to admit to feeling some trepidation about what might lie ahead for me. The thought of having serious drugs pumped into me, with a wide range of potential side effects likely, was not something I was looking forward to. I'm one of those generally lucky people who rarely gets sick (I save myself for a couple of bouts of cancer, none of this namby-pamby man-flu rubbish *GRINS*), so offering myself up to a treatment that is likely to make me feel ill when I've had no symptoms at all seems really odd, and not something I'm particularly looking forward to (who would?), but this is what has to be faced, I guess.
So the process is, it turns out, a long and slow one. After being weighed (so they can calculate how much of each drug I'll need), we were called through to the chemo suite at around 9.30. This is a large room with about large 12 adjustable chairs spread around the walls, each with a drip stand set up beside it. A few of the chairs were already occupied, and I was invited to choose where I wanted to sit and make myself comfortable. Donna initially perched on the side of the chair with me, but then one of the nurses, Sam, located a spare visitor's chair for her. And then we settled in for "the wait".
After a while, Nurse Sam came over and put a cannula into my arm and took a couple of blood samples. She explained that as it was my first visit, I had to wait for Nurse Dee (see previous post) to sort out my consent to treatment, and she'd be through to see me "in a while".
The other chairs gradually filled up over the next hour, and everyone had their cannulas inserted and bloods taken. Some of the people there ahead of me seemed to be having blood transfusions, while others were just waiting, like us. It gradually dawned on us that most of the group were not yet receiving their medication and we realised that everyone was waiting for the blood sample results to come back. These determine the individual's white blood cell count, as best I can work out, and this result will determine whether or not the patient can have treatment that day or not. The labs were running late today, so there was a LOT of waiting to be done by everyone. It was also very disheartening to see about three people being told that their blood count was too low today, so they couldn't have treatment and would have to come back another day (and if it felt like that for me, I can't imagine how it felt for the people this happened to)!
After about another hour, Dr Lee, the main consultant, came to see me and have a chat, as we'd not met before. He again explained the nature of my Hodgkins, and what the treatment would involve. Nurse Dee began sorting out my consent, and she got Dr Lee to write the full diagnosis into my notes, as this hadn't been possible before the second opinion had been received last week, and without the detail specified in my notes, my treatment couldn't start.
More waiting required, and I was getting a little frustrated until I realised that many of the others were waiting too. It seems this treatment-lark is going to need me to learn patience, something I can show with others usually, but am not always good at for myself :). 12.00 came and went, and with it, a very mediocre hospital lunch. Donna and I just sat there chatting and waiting, just wondering what was going to happen and when, and just when I might actually get out of here today?
Finally, Nurse Sam came over with my meds - the four drugs that make up ABVD: Doxorubicin, which was originally called Adriamycin®; Bleomycin; Vinblastine, and Dacarbazine. She explained that she would inject the first two slowly into my cannula, and then the last two would be given via the drip. And so, at about 1.15 pm, we were off.
Sam chatted away with me as she gave me the first couple of drugs over about a 20 minute period, very gently and slowly pushing the drugs into me. She also gave me some anti-sickness medication via this method as well as a small steroid dose which helps counteract the effects of one of the drugs on the lungs. Once this was done, she hung the Vinblastine and started the drip, leaving me while this ran through. At about this stage, we decided that there really was no point in Donna staying much longer, so she went off home, taking my take-home meds (a range of tablets I would have to take over the coming weeks between treatments) with her, with me promising to call her when I was done.
Finally it came time for the Dacarbazine. Sam explained that this drug was light sensitive, so they had to hang it in a special bag. She also told me that many people find having this drug a very uncomfortable experience, as they often report pain in their arm. This can be counteracted by putting something warm on the arm and/or slowing the speed of the drip right down - delivery of the drug therefore could take anywhere from 40 minutes to a couple of hours, but as everyone is different, and it was going to have to be "try it and see what happens", though she added that as I seemed to have good, large veins, this could help as the relative volume of drug to blood in the veins would be less.
This was the drug I'd been most anxious about, as I'd heard about the potential problems, and I'd seen one of the other patients (a big strapping guy across the room) really struggle with it, in obvious discomfort. So when Sam started the drip off, and I felt nothing unusual, that was really positive. She decided to set the drip feed to its fastest setting, telling me that if I noticed any discomfort, I should tell any nurse and they would adjust it for me. And then she went to lunch, telling me she'd check back with me on her return!
After a few minutes, one of the other nurses checked I was still okay, which I was. It had been a long day up to this, and much to my surprise (and delight), I then drifted off to sleep, waking only to the bleep of the monitor on the drip that announced that the Dacarbazine was finished! 40 minutes, on the nose! No discomfort, no itching, RESULT! Another nurse came and disconnected me, removed my cannula and sent me on my way ... home. As I passed through the outpatients section, I found Nurse Sam doing some paperwork. She was amazed to see me, saying that she had been just about to come through to see how far along I was. She checked I was feeling okay (I was) and I was done.
I was feeling quite good, actually, especially after my snooze, so I called Donna and told her I'd walk home (it's only about 10 minutes away). It was great to be out in the fresh air, and so good to have started on this treatment, just seven weeks to the day since I'd gone to my GP to have him look at the lump on my neck. Things feel like they are moving forward positively now; one treatment down, just five to go. Here's hoping they all run as relatively smoothly as this did.
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