I visited with the doctor first, and Dr. Dickson advised me to be proactive, and take the nausea pills or Ibuprofin at the first hint of nausea or pain, rather than wait until they had fully kicked in. I plan to take that advice. Then off to the "Fun Room" where the nurses (Dr. Dickson has a great group of nurses) insert the needle into my port to first draw some blood through it. Then they go into the lab and test the blood before they start the Chemo. If there were to be any blood count issues, they may choose to not give the Chemo. If blood counts look good, then they inject me with steroids ( I guess that helps the chemo work better), then they give an anti-nausea injection, and finally, they hang the first Chemo bag and let it drip.
Three different Chemo drugs are given (Herceptin, Taxotere, & Carboplatin) and each of those take about an hour. When all of that is done, and the needle is removed from the port, I get one last injection in the arm, Neulasta (I decided I didn't like in the belly, even though it probably stings more in the arm), which gets the bone marrow producing white blood cells. The whole process usually takes 4 to 5 hours.
This trip, I sat next to a pretty cool lady named Kathy who I met last Chemo. She was on round #5, so she was nearly at the end! She previously taught me some fun ways to tie scarves. She is a Physical Therapist, and she showed me some exercises to do to try to get back the range of motion in my right arm.
I'm still having issues with a nerve that was cut during surgery that sends pain down my whole arm & into the hand. It has limited my motion. Kathy thinks I should probably go to a Physical Therapist a few times, because it really helped her. I'll try the exercises first.
As we were getting ready to leave, Jamie's cute sister, Kelsey, paid a visit, and brought cookies! It was so fun to see her. Thanks Kelsey! We ate every one of the cookies in the car. Had to get them all in before the Chemo ruined my taste buds again!
Instead of going home, we were off the Utah to help Collin and Tiffany move into their new home they bought in West Jordan. Since we were going to be in Utah, I made another doctor's appointment with hopes of getting the stitches taken out this time. So finally, after 25 days of pokey fishing line tails sticking out of my chest, I finally got the stitches removed! My incision has finally healed - I have cleared the first hurdle! Hallelujah!
Since it usually takes a day or two for Chemo effects to kick in, I decided to really get busy and do as much as I could to help Tiffany get the house ready to move everything into before I started feeling yucky. Unfortunately the previous owners didn't do much cleaning when they moved out - I guess since it all happened pretty fast - so the house needed lots of cleaning.
There was mucky brown goo left behind where the fridge was, nail holes in all the walls someone did a lousy job of over-piling spackling into, etc. I worked on scrubbing floors, wiping down walls, re-spackling nail holes, touching up paint and such.
We were there for several days between cleaning, loading & moving in all of their stuff. I kept expecting the Chemo effects to kick in. I took my pills if I thought I felt anything signs of nausea, like Dr. Dickson advised. Weird thing - the big effects never happened. I don't know if it's from being more proactive, or if I just need to scrub floors & walls, and expose myself to paint fumes right after chemo, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise to be able to keep going, and not feel nausea or pain. (Okay, I was totally pooped, but that's to be expected.)
Feeling pretty good continued on for me, cause the next week I was able to go to Rexburg for my cute little niece, Sarah's wedding, where I stayed for a few days hanging with my family. My parents were there, and of my 6 siblings, everyone was there except Barb, who wasn't feeling well. It was a lot of fun to hang with my family.
So - wow - chemo #3 ended up being a pleasant surprise!
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