You just never know with cancer
And so the cancer ride continues.
Finally got into the chemo program with my first dose being two weeks ago this Friday. Just starting to feel good and bam-oh they are going to hit me again. The oncology unit at RVH is a very calming and inviting, if I dare say so myself then nurses very attentive and checking on you constantly. I asked the nurse who was looking after me, about how many people do they put through the unit on a weekly basis. She said that the average is about 90 people a week. That’s a lot of people, and then you consider how many other hospitals put through at least 5 or 6 times that same number a week, shocking how wide the cancer sea has spread.
The first drug that they put into me is called the “red devil” because of the red colour and how the devil it makes you feel. Going for the first time you never know how you are going to react to the drug or how it is going to make you feel. I didn’t notice any immediate feelings but the rest of the weekend wasn’t much fun. Extreme fatigue was the first symptom, the others I won’t mention. Before you even start the injections you have to take several anti-nausea medications starting a good hour before and continuing for a couple of days after. Then there is the injection that you have to give yourself in the stomach starting on day 2 after the chemo and continues until three days before the next round, you do these injections throughout the whole eight sessions of chemo that I will be going through. This injection is to boost your white blood cell count so that you have some fight against just the regular germs floating out in the world. During chemo you do not want to be exposed to flu or cold or any other common illness, it can mean death for a chemo patient. I would love to take my grandsons to the Children’s’ Festival on Saturday, but the risk of being around those short little germ breeding grounds is too dangerous for me; it sounds like such a fun day.
As I was told that this would probably be my last week of having hair on my head (and all other body parts, Yippee, no shaving the legs of this dolly all summer!) I decided to channel my inner David Bowie and go with magenta hair and dig out my vintage DG white bug eye glasses, if you didn’t recognize me and thought that dear David had risen from the dead, well…just me. The day before you go for chemo you have to go to your local hospital and have blood work done to check your white blood cell count, if too low then they make you skip a week. You have a teleconference with your oncologist who asks you if you had any major problems or concerns, they can go to different anti-nausea meds but they still can’t give you the winning lottery numbers, oh well, worth a try lamenting about it. Till next time…
