First Things First: Chemo Day Number 1

Today I had my first round of chemo.  I was loaded up with a ton of stuff: blankets, book, audiobook, food, knitting, water and an enormous cooler with dry ice and cold caps.  I’m going to just jump right in and say, the cold caps are not for me.  I am very happy that they exist and I know that they help a lot of people but they were very uncomfortable.  Heavy, and I know that it’s obvious when I say they were cold, but my whole body was shaking under two blankets and the headache was intense.  The way that the process works, you have to put them on an hour before treatment, throughout treatment and then four hours afterward.  I was miserable, so my theory is, this experience is bad enough without feeling like that and my hair will grow back.  I already ordered some cute scarves, so just call me Sinead.

The rest of the process went really well.  It was long because they have to go slow.  First they gave me Benadryl, Zofran, Zantac, and steroids to prep my body for the chemo.  There were two different chemo agents that are given back to back, so after all was said and done I was there for about six hours.  Benadryl knocks me on my ass, so I did sleep a little bit, and I was really tired when I was done.  After resting at home for a little while, I did go outside and take a long walk and that made me feel a lot better.

I have oral meds to combat nausea and that mixed with the steroids for three days means that I will most likely feel pretty good for the next three days and then the nurse said that I can expect flu like symptoms and fatigue. 

I am having some bummer issues with the menopause.  The hot flashes have arrived and they are annoying.  They aren’t horrible but they happen unexpectedly and I know when they are about to hit because I get really dizzy before I’m suddenly one very hot mama.  It goes away relatively quickly but then I get really cold.  I was really hoping I was going to manage to skip this problem, but so far they are manageable, just a nuisance.

I go back in three weeks for my next treatment.  I have to get blood work weekly to watch my blood count and make sure I can handle it.  So here we go.