The most newbie question ever?

Hi @RiotAtMidnight, So much helpful stuff said here. I finished chemo last May and it’s hard to imagine at the start, but you really do forget a lot of it. Here are some little things I thought of * port was the best thing for me * no issues or feeling of the AC going in, but you will be monitored * you will pee red/orange almost immediately, like you ate food colouring * I ate while i was having it * steroids kept me awake and very hungry - smoothies and toast at 2am kind of hungry! * never vomited had a bit of nausea but made sure I took the medication and that stopped it in its tracks - so take the meds * tried to walk/stroll as much as I could * got reflux and was prescribed a tablet and it stopped and have not had reflux since treatment stopped * ate fruit tingles for the funny taste in my mouth * did a Look Good Feel Better program, met amazing girls and just had our one year friendiversary and we will be friends for life - silver lining in a shit storm * imagined the chemo doing amazing healing things in my body - like weeding the garden of crappy weeds * cried buckets * laughed loads and celebrated the small victories along the way.
We are here for you. This is doable. Some of the women in this thread really helped in getting me over the line and we will get you there too. Wishing you well Mx

Thank you again @Cath62 - super helpful advice. I usually walk an hour a day anyway, so will make sure to get up super early on Tuesday and stretch those legs before heading to hospital!

Hi @RiotAtMidnight, visualisation is great. I imagined the chemo being a golden light that destroyed only cancer cells and nothing else.  🌈. I use to drink loads of water the day before and also on the day and after. Flushing it out of my body. I walked on chemo days too usually before it. I was given steroids as anti rejection of the chemo drugs and also anti nausea meds before the chemo. The steroids were given a few times snd then once they knew I could handle it, they stopped it. The sterio may me speed up for 2 or 3 days and then I would crash. Fatigue is a killer but exercise helped me with that. Fatigue is not tiredness. It is like energy depletion.  I got through half my treatment with either my son or husband coming with me and then covid interrupted that. The nurses were great and I got there in the end.  I was treated in The Wesley in Brisbane and I rang this bell loudly when I finished this part of my treatment. I was alone at the end because of covid but a nurse captured the moment for me.

I love hearing all the visualisation strategies people use! Similar to you @Abbydog I’ve been thinking that it might be useful to imagine the chemo searching and destroying around my body. I don’t know if it’s specific only to IBC, but my breast is hot and swollen and I can actually see the symptoms of the cancer. In a strange way - maybe because you have all calmed me down a lot - I can’t wait to get those drugs in there as soon as possible. 

I did mention, in my first post, that a port installed that morning, saved a lot of prodding and poking. By the way...I still have it, almost five years later. It is flushed and heparin locked every six to eight weeks and has been used many times (for other medical conditions), when a big juicy vein is needed...fast. As my chemo went in, I formed the mental picture of the drugs being like those little Pacman characters from decades ago. I pictured them racing behind the escaping cancer cells, with their mouths going chomp..chomp..chomp...and the music going faster and faster and then the final "Whaahh whaaahh whaaahh waaaaa as the little animation fell over, with little wiggly legs twitching in the air, as it was devoured. By the way...no...the men in the white coats never took me off to a nice little room with lovely soft walls, a door which can only be opened from the outside, and a jacket with long do up straps which is worn the wrong way round...

I had forgotten the cold feeling at the beginning and the sudden weird metallic taste - now that I have remembered, I can also recall that there was a feeling of being under pressure a bit (but I do get that with different IV-infused drugs).  I had AC-T and the first successful infusion after an unsuccessful debacle a couple of days before, led me to feeling quite nauseous towards the end which was easily treated by injected drugs.  However, that may have been a lot to do with anxiety and fatigue.  Subsequent treatments were much easier (always some anxiety until the chemo drug started flowing) and were in the morning so dealt with better I expect.  Glad you're getting a port - it makes life simpler.  My clinic provided food and drinks for both me and my husband throughout - sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, soup - so check whether yours does.  My advice that I give to everyone though is to make sure that you contact your clinic afterwards if the drugs they send you home with don't work well enough - don't suffer in silence.

Hi @RiotAtMidnight

Ah chemo. Sigh.  It doesn’t feel like anything going in.  My nurses gave me a Panadol at the start to keep me comfy.  Chemo nurses are a special breed of person, they are beautiful,
so don’t worry. They will take care of you. They have seen it all. I loved chatting with them to distract myself. Probably drove them crazy haha.

I used to take chocolate and nice bickies in to treat myself during chemo. Often I would fall asleep trying to meditate . Day 3 afterwards  the effects would hit me.  I would curl up on the couch and doze. And it slowly got better by about day 5 .We are all different, and I didn’t have any nausea at all. I had various other crappy things like mouth ulcers and loss of taste. Funny how my mind has blocked a lot of it out! 
Someone on here once said chemo is grotty but doable and they nailed it. Frankly I thought of the effects of it as a giant science experiment on my body with interesting side effects. I found that you just have to laugh at it and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Good luck Ms Riot!
Caz xxxxxx

Thank you @Michelle_R @kazb and @Zoffiel 👍 I’m glad to be getting a port first thing Tuesday before my first treatment. thanks for the water reminder - I love a good soda water too so will load up!

One thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is the possibility of having a port inserted if your veins are dodgy.

I've had two rounds of treatment, a decade apart, and I must say that the second episode where I had a port in my chest that is super easy to access, made me feel like I was a genuine pro at the poisoning game. So much easier and took all the stress of getting a viable line in away. No jabbing, no bruising. It is another invasive procedure but it worked for me.  

Drink heaps of water beforehand--my personal preference was soda water. Being well hydrated is always a good idea. 

Fore me, chemo itself was just boring. It didn't take long for the staff to figure out I was not interested in small talk so they left me alone and let me read. I always went on my own and didn't suffer any ill effects, physically, during the infusions. The first session is done very slowly, which I found extremely tedious when I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. Mxx