My sons sometimes have a hilarious way of explaining things. We were having a conversation in my car coming home from school the other afternoon and my oldest wanted to randomly talk about WWI and WWII. I was crying from laughing when he said "Ethiopia got oofed by Italy..." and "Belgium was gobbled up by Germany..." He's awesome. I decided to use his words later that night explaining chemotherapy to both. Somehow, explaining it to them, using his words, made it so much less dark for me. In my attempt to explain it to them, I helped myself.
I've entered the world of chemotherapy. Not a fun world although funny shit happens with it. First decision was port or no port. No brainer. I'm small. Ridiculously small and so are my veins. My veins must have my ball busting personality because they love to roll if they see a needle coming. Port was a must but that involves a little twilight surgery. That's the polite way of saying we are knocking you out but no tube down the throat this time. My sister from another mister took me while John played Mr Mom and got the kids ready and off to school and then met up at the hospital. Having her really kept my mind occupied and had me laughing and happy. Time flew and they were ready for me...
The procedure was fairly quick. Two incisions are made and it's done with a team under a cat scan to ensure proper placement. I was in and out and awake pretty darn fast and the first words out of my mouth was "please tell me you have food." Then I asked for John, lol. I was out by noon and just a little sleepy for the day. Nothing terrible.
Chemotherapy started yesterday, 48 hours after port placement. First thing I had to do was go to Radiology to have it accessed and checked for blood return. I've entered a new level of Hell. They were supposed to prescribe a numbing cream to be placed on the area an hour beforehand. Nope, never happened. I went in cold. Nurse said I would feel a "boop" nothing terrible. Nope, not true. It was as though she took a nail in a square of plastic and whacked it into my chest. I sobbed. She checked it and sent me on my way to Oncology.
Once at oncology, they drew my blood, checked my weight and I met with my oncologist who cleared me for round one of AC. I had a private infusion suite which was quite nice!! My nurses were fantastic. They explained everything to me and then had to access the port to get things running. Holy Hell, the pain. When she pushed saline through, I wanted to scream. Something was obviously wrong. Great introduction to this, right?! After several more attempts, they decided it would be best to remove the access point and start over. What what? More pain? My nurse must have a magic touch as I had no clue that she had even finished when I thought she was starting. Once she pushed saline through, I felt absolutely nothing. Folks, chemo does not hurt. I know this now.
Round one of AC is in the books. AC is nicknamed the Red Devil. It can be harsh and it's really red!! It will also make you pee red, which is freaky. It's not just one bag of goodies that goes into you. It's a process. There's IV hydration, steroids, anti nausea packs and then the individual bags of drugs for chemo, each one with it's own times and rates and methods. For one of them, I was told to chew ice and keep a mouthful in my head while it was going through. The nurse had to physically push each syringe through. That was the Red Devil. In true Grace fashion, I managed to choke on a piece of ice but gave her the thumbs up to say I was ok!!
At the very end, a Neulasta auto injector was placed on my right arm to go off 27 hours after infusion finished. I have a bone to pick with their commercials. We are going through chemo. Please stop showing people with lovely full heads of hair. We are going to lose ours. Show me some beautiful bald women rocking it to make it relevant to me.
This morning, I totally freaked out because a green light was flashing on my arm! Holy crap! Did I sleep wrong and mess something up? Enter a panicked phone call to the oncology department. The nurse had a good laugh over this! It's supposed to flash green. She reminded me of the beeping and everything else that follows. Yep, I'm a space cadet sometimes, it's part of my charm!
So for now, all of those crazy drugs and chemicals pumped into me are supposed to go on a mission an seek out the possibility of any errant cancer cells that may have escaped. As awful as this is, I have to do this for me. I need to make sure I am doing everything I can to be cancer free. If these drugs find any of Felicia's nasty little friends, it will "oof" and "gobble" them up and I guess I'll pee them out or something! Bye Felicia...FLUSH!!
As for the rest of today, I'm done with taking medications, will be drinking lots of water and want to go peek at the bag the hospital gave me yesterday from the Comfort Project, I got a cute chemo blanket for the next time I go. I will eagerly await the little "boop" to hit my arm to boost my immune system tonight...
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