First chemo dose diary.
Note: Nadir: Meaning low point, nadir is the point in time between chemotherapy cycles in which you experience low blood counts.
Onset: 4-7 days
Nadir: 5-9 days
Recovery: 21 days
15 January, 2016. My first chemo dose.
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Not sure if that image will display or not but you can always just copy and paste the link and see if that works? We really need a preview post service on this forum before we post it.
An early morning appointment as since it’s my first chemo they inject it over twice as long, keeping an eye on me for any major immediate side affects but I had no troubles.
The canula with the needle was given just up past my wrist on the outside of my arm. A rather odd place which sort of made me a little squeamish as I hadn’t had one there before. It seemed to work ok there though and although a little stingy it wasn’t really a problem. The problem was after two hours, the second bag of chemo had chilled right down in the high air conditioned room and as it injected it was freezing to my arm. I told the nurse and she gave me a heat pack on my arm to warm the stuff up a bit. It was much better then.
I had my laptop with me and chatted with my face book friends during treatment and watched a long dvd movie Twister. My favourite movie as I like a lot of the music in it and the action scenes make you forget what’s happening with your treatment for a bit. It worked as the movie ended just before the end of chemo. Ok it was paused a fair bit for face book chatting as well.
After sitting in the car and the chemo chair for 5 hours I thought it might be a good idea to have a little walk when I got home. I donned all the sun protection so nothing touched my skin, even wore white gloves, and had a little 150meter walk down the beach to the end of our street and walked the street side back home. I felt pretty good after that and realised for now at least I am going to live. It’s invigorating to move for me and irons out the muscle kinks of aging.
I was crazily thirsty all afternoon and night after the chemo and must have drunk at least 2 litres of water. I had a light dinner meal of tomato cup a soup and toast as I don’t want to overload the stomach which is going to cop a beating with the chemo drugs killing lining cells. No nausea at all yet and the tablets supplied must be doing their jobs.
It was kind of nice issuing orders to the family, bring the birds inside for the night, feed the dogs, feed the fish. I could get used to this!
Day 2. My first day after chemo treatment, I got up in the morning feeling fine but as soon as I got moving and drank some water and woke my stomach up it started all sorts of cramps and noise and nausea. I got hubby to make me a bit of dry toast as I have to eat something with my anti nausea drugs but I felt like I would probably be sick before I got to the toast so I downed a half a glass of milk. Oh it was bliss on a fire feeling stomach and I tossed the pills down after it and gnawed on the dry bit of toast for a tentative first bit of breakfast. The drugs did cure the nausea but I still had wild stomach noises and some awful burps.
For once we had a cool overcast morning so I donned all my sun protection, gloves included and walked the dogs their usual 3k walk. The deeper breathing and the moving of the body walking ironed out a lot of my body aches and the stomach then shut up as well.
On the way home one pair of neighbours yelled out and asked how I was doing. Good thanks! (She had overcome breast cancer in 2014 so she knows what I am going though). Another neighbour came out and said his partner’s hip had dislocated and she had to go to hospital but good news, as they moved her to a bed it slipped back into place again and she was allowed to go home. (She will ring me later today when she’s feeling better and see how I am going). Another pair of neighbours greeted us walking past and gave me a tin of home made slice. Oh it looks so good but I am not sure I can eat it or not. I might sneak a little bit into me this afternoon if the stomach feels settled enough.
I am drinking a fair bit of water today but not crazily thirsty as I was just after the chemo. A side affect of drinking water is trips to the loo. I might have to move my laptop closer to the toilet lol. At least I am getting plenty of exercise going up and down the hall way.
