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jd48's avatar
jd48
Member
10 years ago

AC Chemo - Round 2 - Days 1-5 (Chemo session from Hell)

I know it had been a while but it has taken this long fornme to regroup enough to come back and write about my 2nd AC Chemo experience as the whole damn episode is something I want to simply forget.

I thought long and hard if I would even document it as why rehash stupidity of a nurse and my failure to stop to torture but then thought I cannot be the only one that will ever find her self in this situation so if my torture and stupidity help someone act sooner and get them a more positive outcome in the similar situation then may as well warn them.

I was again being admitted for Chemo due to this being 2nd one and me having a propensity for allergic reactions so would have an overnight stay. My 1st Chemo I had a wonderfull nurse who wanted to ensure all was perfect and I would come to no harm so I walked in confident all would be well.

It all started a bit 'off'. 1st I was sent to a parient lounge as the bed was not ready... then delays because Dr missed me since not in my designated beg (which was not ready anyway), they delays as they could not order meds due to lack of being checked out by Dr, then finally bed ready, Dr cornered and my canula magician find the vein on the 1st go (yes they had him ready and waiting knowing my veins like to hide).

I see my angel nurse Louise from the 1st Chemo but turns out she is on other dutires and I have a different nurse. Oh well ... surely she too will be good...

Off my new nurse goes to fkush the just inserted canual and strong burning pain shoots up my arm as if someone had been ripping the vein out of my hand. Startled I yelp and she stops. I explain that it is extremely painfull so something is not right with the canula... She proceeds to slowly inject from there on and no pain so she assures me all is well and since there isnblood return it means canula us secure so must have been just temporary sensitivity.

Dietitian arrives at the same time as they finally secured one to help me work out my bodie's ungodly reaction to Chemo session no1 and all those intestinal bleeds so seeing I have this prescious reresour I try to ignore the searing pain just experienced and transfer all the attention onto her.

She is good.. pays attentiona and provides some very valuable advice and while talking to her the nurse who is moving about seems tomhook me up to IV wanting some fluids in me befire we start treatment and as she walks away the horrid searing oain starts to pulsate through my canulated arm. I yelp and start calling for her and oretty much yell at thendietitian to run after the nurse who had auickly taken off. While I am squeeling terifying other patients in this 4 bed room nurse is dragged back and uminstead of turning the drip off tries to persuade me all is well. I must say the next words iut of my mouth may have shamed the most seasoned sailor but she gets the message and turns the IV off...

Poor dietian looks at me half shocked at what had just transpired and with such pitty that I realise I must be a trully pathetic sight. Other women in the room all alarmed at my distress I feel badly.for upsetting everyone and decide to buck up and put my big girl panties on...

Nurse proceeds to rub my arm and the tender vein gently and reasures me it is fine and regardless of my asking for nurse M to be brought back for a different canula to be inserted she insisits when IV was set to low as there is no searing pain all is good.

Ashamed by my earlier outburst and how much other would have been distressed I retreat and shut up. Dietitian continues our conversation and since the searing oain turns into mere discomfort I decide to ignore it.

Received some brilliant advice from the dietitian that I am sure will help me manage this round and its effect on the gut better and will share it in a separate post along with a orintout of what food options are suggested by her for different stages of chemo (based on tummy reactions) to ensure good nutrition and least gut strain.

Dietitian now gone and nurse is back wanting to start injecting pre Chemo meds but offcourse every time she sttempts to inject me searing pain is back and I scream... Finally 1.5 hours into the ordeal she calls up nurse M to check the troublesome woman and while M agrees that canula seems fine he too is alarmed by my pain and suggests we try for a new canula (but is worried as well as he is not finding a good site easily). So my chemomnurse not wanting to delay further asks M if heat pack would help relax my painfull vein thus eliminate pain andnwhen he agrees it might she shoes him off and gets a heat pack instead. Guys - this is where I should have insisted they find another vein. I should not have agreed to the damn heatpack... Do not make the same mistake as me as all it does is prolong the torture and delays the inevitable.

So Inam.left to fry my hand as the heatpack is applied and the IV flush that should have been a 10min thing and has now been dripping 2hrs continues... Another 30min and IV not done. They try to increase soeed and offcourse searing pain, me screaming they stop and get M... Well yes - serves me right for not standing up for myself straight away - nurse M nowhere to be found as he is normally on the ward so off my nurse goes to assure me all would be well and she would very slowly administer Chemo and there would be no pain.

To demonstrate all is well she tries to get blood return but now my tortured and now fried vein returns no blood. More jiggling of the canula, my swearing, my bed repositioned to get gravity to help - Yes those bloody beds can be raised 1.5-1.7m off the ground... I am height of her head now - nowhere to run... M is back now and visibly anoyed that it is time for him to knock off for the day but now faced with a situation where he is supposed to cannualte me in a hurry when he wanted to do it properly earlier. It had been many hours, he is anxious, I am tired, anxious and ready to bolt, chemo nurse isnfrustrated with her difficult patient and rhey all nowndecide to kive me to a different room with the boys and the women that have been witnessing the whole ordeal are now absolutely alarmed and distressed and Chemo had not even began...

Yay... I get wheeled off whole bloody 1.6m off then ground the whole time into another room with 2 flustered anxious nurses... As Michael starts examining my right arm to assess if he can get a canula in I close my eyes to try ignore what is about to happen and "think of England" and as the familiar "canula going in" pain starts in my right hand the scortchin mind numbing oain shoots up my left ppreviousl canullaed arm and I scream like nobody has ever screamed. At the same time poor M swears putting my earlier sailor immitations to shame, and starts pressing onto my right arm as if to break it. As I look to the source of the previosu pain I realise stupid chemo nurse decided to try inject the pink chemo goo into me when I had my eyes closed and while M was attempting to insert the canula. No other words for it - the idiot thought I had been making up the searing pain those past 3.5 hrs and that with my eyes closed all would be fine.

Fury in M's eyes fortunately was enough to get her to slowly back away from me. He is sweating apologicing and at the same time just about breaking my arm in 2 as he cannot stop the bleeding caused by him being startled with my screaming as he was trying to get the canula in. A dark blue stain is growing on my right arm under his finger as nothing will stop the bleed... 10 min later he thinks bleed is slowed down enough for him to have another go. So now it is time for my wrist to get the canula trecanula. Luckilly for me M gets the right vein, canula in, he flushes it and no pain. 

Relief in his eyes and a really sad look at the same time as he looks at the 10cm bruise on the same arm from the poreviou attempt... So he insisuts on stying for when pinkngoo is injected as he does not seem to trust the assigned nurse on her own.

She starts to inject the goo but as thengoo cannot leakn into the tissue and I am experiencwog  bleed from the bothched canula just above it poor M is pressing down on the painfull canula bruise site while goo is flowing...

Me imagining the pinknshit ravaging my hand as it leaks slowly too terrified to open my eyes just count to 10 again and again until they say it is done. No searing pain... I escaped a toxic leak into then muscle. Nobody saying a word for a while there just kind of relieved we made it through the 1st chemo drug. Poor M appologising again for my bruised arm waits for the 2nd drug to be hooked up then slowly heads home. My Chemo nurse now obviously feeling badly retreats as well and I am left to wait for the drip to feed the rest of the crap into my body very very slowly as now they had flow set so low it took almost 2 full hrs...

The whole ordeal ended at 7pm (started at 1pm). Yes I was stupid and yes I should have been more outspoken and forcefull when I knew things were wrong. I am sorry to have gone on and on and on about my bothched canulas but I am normally a VERY strong person and very vocal but this time in this bloody setting I lost my faith in myself. I doubted myself and paid dearly for it... The reason I went on in this much detail is so that someone else faced with this problem down the road can see how badly it can go and I want them to feel more empowered and stronger than I did so they get a better outcome.

Thinking thenwirst was behind me once the IV was unhooked I tried to rest but then was faced by a never ending problem of nurse wanting to administer me drugs I was not allowed to have and not having ones I needed charted as the Dr who admitted me mid my relocating frommpatient launge to the room buggered up my chart. He xharted me fornblood thinners which at best of cisrcumstances I was not allowed to have due to lrezisting conditions and.imkinent treats of intestinal blood loss as well as a stroke. He also charted me for neuralgia meds which are administered once daily in the morning so.offocutse I would have ODed had they.given them to me but he failed to chart antibiotics which I was taking for a neutropenia induced UTI. 

What helped navigate this was that the nurse that was in charge of my botched cchem was assigned to me so knowing the ordeal and my stubborness when faced with my 1st drug refusal backed off and agreed to just note my drug refusals and note down what I was self admnistering from my personal drug supply (I always bring my own meds to hospital should they be needed).

I spent most of the night walking the corridors trying to keep nausea at bay which helped. Proud to say I clocked in over 7000 steps that night so.plenty of exercuse...

The next morning brought in more mischarted meds but that was dealt with. Admitted ohysician did have my firy and wrath to deal with when he visited with the Onvologist and needless to say he buggered up my discharge meds too somhaving strips torn off him helped to get him to quickly retreat to fix it... Oncologist agreed to increase steroid steo down for me by 2 days which now that Inam.in day 5 I think has been helping a tad...

Positive: My lovely breastvcar nurse directed me to a "wig library" which is a name of a place at POW Hospital in Sydney (open only 3hrs every Tue morning) that has all headwear at really great prices and I got 4 fancy bamboo scarves for about 40% of what I foudn the best orice to be in any ither shop and thengorgeous ladies there shaved my head completely for free when I whinged about my anoying itchy crew cut...

Having gone home with Neulasta to be administered by the GP that evening happy to say that this round of chemo is a tad easier on me in terms if 'Chemo fog'. Have not been a loopy and have found it a little bit easier to concentrate. My vision and visual.perception also better than after 1st round.

3.5 days post Neulasta injection no huge pain somhoping I have managed to evoid the dreaded bone pain sideeffect from it (not sure when it kicks in but trully hoping 4 days post injecting it does not kick in)

Nausea slightly more noticable than after 1st chemo but very much managable. One thing that alarmed me was an onset of random chest pains every day, more pronounced blood pressure drop than after 1st Chemo and much greater pulse rate drop. I know heart trouble is normal in the initial few days but did get ECG done by GP just in case. 

Well low BP is resulting in my being incredibly tired so took me whole of 5 days to get arround to writing this down. Still tired and feeling like just sitting is too much of a chore but hoping BP come back and with it my ability to function like a normal human being.

All in all it was a Chemo from Hell and while the plummeting BP and dizzy spells have alarmed me other mside effects have been more managable so should not complain too much...

I promisse to come back and share the food chart given to my by the Dietitian but now time to get up and see my GP for the official results from my heart check up...

Hope we all have a lovely not overly eventfull long weekend

??

Jel

6 Replies

  • I have not been exercising at all the first week post chemo Kath. Incapable of walking due to heart and BP not cooperating... On round one could not really physically get around until week and a half into it and time the same.

    Seems that my heart and circulatory system really are wiped by AC...

    Other side effects heaps better so hoping now that the days of GI onsault hit that holds out as well .

    And yes definitely read thak link black than as need all the help I can get to do this right.

    Jel.

  • Did you ever read that link Jel I sent about avoiding exercise during A in AC on the day and day after as can cause irregular heart beats? Just wondering. Well despite a truly horrid hospital experience looks like things going better. I found round 3 and 4 much better. Will you be having 4 or 6 rounds of AC?

  • not surenthat ginger works fornbruises but Inguess O could.give it a go ??

    I know that minced onion definitely works but at the moment nose not liking strong smells so have been avoiding that one. I guess ginger at least not likely.to make me pukey...

    I have been loading on water pre giving blood or chemo to make the veins easier to.find - something my usual pathologist suggested. But thinking now maybe that is why the smaller blood vessels seemed attractive to them. Maybe I should go the opposite and dehydrate so they can only find major veins...

  • One of my oncology nurses suggested I mix a 1 to 5 mixture of ginger oil to olive oil and apply it several times a day supposedly to bring up the veins for chemo. It's supposed to increase circulation. It didn't work for my vein access but I am wondering if it might help to disburse that awful bruise you have?

  • luckilly she did not get to pump much chemo into the vein so that one has recovered as soon as they yanked the canula out. Still hurt for a couple of days but no burns...

    The one that exploded when I screamed is pretty bba - massive painfull 10x10cm dark purple burise that hurts like Hell still but they did not suggest anything could be done to help it heal ??

    My GP has seen it several.times now and whole he shudders every time he has to check my pulse or BP he has not said it needed treatment so the horrid bruising os probably the extent of it and bound to take a long time to heal...

    I just hope my stupidity helps someone else speak up more assertivelly than I did and avoid this Hell in the future

    This is my 2nd canula attempt outcome 6 days later ??

  • Sorry to hear you had the nurse from hell on your second round. I had one on the 3rd round on the one occasion I didn't have any one with me that day. I also documented that day as if I didn't I would have thought I was the crazy one not the nurse. Yes it hurts a lot if the cannulas not in a good vein. That day they used the smallest vein on the back of my hand and the entire multiple hours burned. Keep an eye on the site of it as it can erupt in the skin into a burn and if infected you will have all sorts of troubles. Fortunately mine never got any infections and just looked like a chemical burn for a few weeks. They can do dressings if you think it needs it so just ask, its no biggie and stay in touch with your oncology team.