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Brenda5's avatar
Brenda5
Member
10 years ago

Chemo 3 day.

Day 1 of 3rd chemo, Friday 26th Feb, 2016. No bad reactions this time thank goodness, just a nightmare nurse. I think I got stuck in the middle of a lazy trainee nurse (57yrs old mind you) who likes to play the confused card and get other nurses to step in and save her for just about everything. Today they purposely for the most part ignored her. Thanks for nothing!

The Doctor came over early as I sat down, never spoke to me, spoke to a nurse, not the one they stuck me with and that nurse smacked the Dr lady’s bottom for being cheeky! I cannot believe she didn’t lay charges, it was most disrespectful. Luckily it was one of the hardest working nurses there and I think she partly attended every single patient all day poor thing.

My appointment was 11.15 and I didn’t get the canula needle in until 12.30. My useless nurse decided the best spot was in the wrist joint. Remember the cardinal rule of chemo; never use a vein in a joint? I reminded her but she didn’t seem to want to listen.

Then she had the hide to ask me could she use my lymphodema arm for the canula and chemo. Obviously the bright pink band on my wrist saying this arm NO blood pressure NO needles didn’t intimidate her enough and she was asking me could she have permission to use it? Hell no! So she stuck to the wrist joint, but fortunately she missed the vein, then she played I need help card and got the poor hardworking nurse to do it as the head nurse was purely ignoring her today. Why do this to me? The head nurse had no troubles the last two chemo doses and even I knew where the vein was, it was standing out from my arm for goodness sakes but the two lower nurses must have been blind.

The hardworking nurse decided lets use the back of the hand and chose the smallest veins. She missed first go and then twisted it around in there to try and find the vein and missed again. I still 5hours later have to keep the pressure pad on that spot as it still bleeds when I take it off.

Then she decided further up near my middle finger knuckle was good and then twisted it off to over my ring finger toward the little finger and it went in with only 1cm left till it would have emerged out of the side of my hand. So that 1cm room for all that chemo liquid you can imagine it hurt like a bitch all day.

Dopey nurse couldn’t calculate (so she said) what rate to set the chemo stuff in and called the hard working nurse to figure it out for her. I mean ffs this is dangerous hazardous poison and this chick is practically doing it unsupervised. I was terrified.

After three lots of premeds (Promethazine, Hydrocortisone, and Granisetron) to combat reactions to the chemo drugs done in order in proper time rates, the docetaxel chemo got fast forwarded to an hour instead of 2, and then she was impatient with the half hour saline flush before the next lot of chemo so she fast forwarded it to 20 mins.

Trouble is when that finished she didn’t turn the rate down and the Cyclophosphamide chemo got started on the fast forward rate. I was talking to an orderly when she did it and it hurt so much I went F**k Me! She said oh is that hurting, while she realised her mistake of not resetting the dose rate after the saline and repeatedly pushed the button down. Muttered something about oh on a pause and restart it often forms a clot at the start. Bull! The fastest rate was 1hour 15mins the head nurse could bump it up the last two chemo sittings did but this one did it in half an hour! You can imagine how much it was hurting going thru that 1cm of space in the side of my hand. She went off for lunch and left the office girl to keep an eye on things. I have no idea if there had been a reaction to the chemo what she would have done. Fortunately the hard working nurse came back after a few minutes so I could breathe easier then. I had told Klutz nurse I was ok with the second chemo drug as a rule, I just had a bad reaction last time to the first drug. She was surprised and said,Did you have a reaction last time? Didn’t she even READ my file? 

All my little blood blisters on my arm were black when I got out and my hand even after the needle was out and bleeding under the pad ached so bad I was nearly in tears. I thought about asking for a couple of Panadol but Les showed up to pick me up and once out in the heat it thawed out a bit and my swollen arm full of chemo drugs went off into my body. Please! Never let me have that nurse again! 

I had been up most all night worrying about this chemo day and only got 3hours of sleep. Maybe I should have just stayed up all night and fallen asleep in the chemo chair and asked for some heavy duty painkillers to combat the klutz nurse? Nah, I would have ended up with my axillary node cleared arm dosed full of chemo. Grrrrr!

Enough complaining do you like my new favourite shirt? Colour matched to the chemo chairs lol.

6 Replies

  • Not long now. It will be so good once it's finished. Here's hoping all well for next time!

  • You poor thing. I have to say my chemo nurses were exceptional, I did, however , have a nurse that clearly didn't like her job when I got put into hospital for neutropenia. Basically telling me I would be better off at home at not in a hospital, lacked wearing any gloves or gowns and would delight in turning the room light on at 2.am to give me my next dose of antibiotics. Couldn't wait to get out of there. Thankfully she was the only one . Makes you wonder why they chose their profession.

    onwards and upwards as they say. You are doing so well. Nearly at the end now. ????

    linda x

     

  • Oh Brenda! This is everyone's worst chemo nightmare I'd say!

    I can't even begin to comprehend...I would have passed out! But it's done and finished now, so on with it! Hopefully you won't get any side effects this time around...

    You look gorgeous in your new shirt! I think all chemo clinics are lilac..when I was taking my M.I.L for hers we used to call them the Lilac Angels, her chemo nurses were beautiful, they even came downstairs to see us when she passed....

    Keep that gorgeous smile on your face love and here's to an event free next round!

     

    Xx

     

     

  • Only one to go and I will ask the head oncology Dr the day before could he please drop by on my last chemo just to make sure everything is going ok.

  • Hi Brenda, love the shirt. I've got purple chairs too. Cross this chemo off your list! It's done and dusted. I really feel for you and the pain of those damn cannulas and chemo drugs though. This week my port was blocked again and the cannula floated which meant when they flushed it the saline went into my skin instead of the vein. Ouch. Talk about stinging!  They fixed it but I will I have to have another procedure to unblock it again next week. It always feels like it is something, right? Thank goodness you had no reactions this time.  I can't believe you're 3 chemo's down already. Talk about time flying. For the last couple I took panadeine forte before the chemo which helped with the needles and other pain. Hope the next one goes easier for you, I'll keep my fingers crossed. How many more to go?

    Take care, Nadine

  • Brenda I am really sorry to hear of your experience with the chemo nurse, It is frightening enough just having the treatment but you really need to feel reassured by the people looking after you that you are in safe hands.

    Thankfully you had no bad reactions to the chemo this time & I hope you get the care you deserve with your future treatments.

    Sending a big hug to you.

    Eileen xx