One down, 7 to go

First time went without a hitch. The port is a ROCKSTAR, when I get there the girl in the lab puts a special needle in it and tapes it down, then they just attach whatever to it to do whatever they need to do. I did not feel a thing when she put the needle in, couldn't feel it at all in there. You know when you have an IV in your arm or hand, you can constantly feel it, if you move your arm it can pull and hurt - it's just awkward and icky. I have a lump and a bruise on the back of my hand from the IV on Wed. for my port implant surgery, it's really sore. So the port needle is in and taped down, with a tube coming out. She attached a syringe the tube and drew blood - couldn't feel it. When I got to the chemo room, she attached an IV tube to it - couldn't feel it. You know when they start putting fluids into your IV it gets cold, your whole arm or whole body can get cold? Didn't feel it, what goes into the port goes directly into my Vena Cava - big vein in my chest - can't feel it. So yeah, very pleased about that. Had a long talk with my oncologist - we've settled on calling her Dr. Amy (Harker-Murray is a mouthful, and she's 10 years younger than me!) She was once again very forceful in saying she's going to control my side effects. If I start getting really nauseous or throwing up and the meds don't stop it - I'm to call them, 24 hrs a day - and they'll order something else, immediately. Fever over 101.5 - call immediatly. I need to Google and find the nearest 24 hour pharmacy - that I hopefully won't use!

They started with just saline, then a small bag of anti-nausea meds, Aloxi, that lasts 72 hours and is supposed to be really good, then a bag of sterioids that help nausea, then a nip of Adivan which is anti anxiety, then came the bag of scary bright red stuff - the Adriamycin. I was wrong on the infusion - if you have a port it just drips. That only took about 30 minutes. I'm drinking TONS of water to flush this stuff out of me, hence I'm hitting the restroom a lot, too. I was half way thru the bag of red stuff and needed to go. Stephen helped me roll the IV to the bathroom, and I was already urinating pink - thank goodness they had warned me! So this stuff is already passing thru me in 15 minutes. The next time I went about an hour later it was RED, if I hadn't been warned that would be scary. After the red, she started the Cytoxan, that took a little over an hour & 1/2 maybe? And we were done. Wow. I did not cry, I didn't even have my anxiety shoot up too much. I think that I had so much anxiety last week, up thru Wed. when I had my surgery for the port - I got a lot of it out of my system I think.

The most common time for the nausea, general ill feeling, exhaustion, etc. is 2-3 days or 5-6 days later I'm told. Or it could be tonight - everybody is different. I'm tired, but nothing else, yet. I will feel worse, that's a given - but when? I feel like I'm waiting for something to fall out of the sky and land on me when I least expect it. Will it be a large or small something? Will it be gross or just annoying, irritating or damn near unbearable? Ugh, I will do my best to distract myself as soon as I hit "publish post".

I have a cancer-buddy in Northern California that I found on this blog site, she had the same triple negative tumor I did, she's doing the same chemo plan, she's thru her first 4 treatments - all of the A/C - and she is a font of information, how incredible I stumbled on that right at the moment it means the most? She's lovely, and generous - has emailed me her daily notebook she kept each day of her chemo, so I can see what she did/took daily and how she felt. I'm just..........grateful, there's that word again.

The texts and emails this morning were awesome, how could I be upset when I had all that to distract me? Too wonderful for words, here I am chock full o chemo, and I'm still feeling grateful - dat's good! All bets are off moment to moment tho, I fully know this can change on a dime. I told Stephen we needed barf bags for the car, and a bucket to keep near me in the house. My aunt told me that when she threw up it happened FAST. I'm so determined to be prepared it's starting to get pretty wacky, I'm going to take some compazine and try and freaking chill now.

Thank you Deb, Deb, Deb (there are 3), Ging, Sherry, Claudia, Barbara, Carol, Brit, Bret and my Jerry - Love you big bro, you are dear to me. And the man - Stephen - he is the rock. You are the team that holds me up.