Two down, Four to go/ AKA - Hair Problems

So. Yesterday's chemo went well. Marta and Mom both came with me and, besides Marta's squeemishness at the needle going into the port, both came out of the experience unscathed. Not so much for me. Last night my hair started to fall out. I guess it's a good thing that Marta and I went shopping for some scarves. I'm not really up to telling you all about this, but I am finally starting to see the humerous side of my reaction to the last chemo. So instead you will finally hear about the first chemo treatment. Maybe, in two weeks, after my third chemo, I'll be ready to talk about the hair.

So, for my first chemo they put us in a seperate room. I'm not sure if they thought that I looked like a trouble maker or it was the fact that between the three of us, (Mom, Amy and myself) we looked as if we were moving in, but somehow we snagged the primo room. (Just to mention, we got this room again. I think that I will continue to have to bring multiple people with me to ensure that we can snag it.) Anyway, once we were "unpacked" with a portable DVD player, my laptop, cards, and other such sundries, my nurse, Betsy, got down to buisness.

First she hooked up a needle to my port. As I had only gotten the damn thing the day before it was still a little on the sensitive side. It took all I had in me not to deck her with the hand that wasn't being restrained. After starting me on some saline to hydrate me she hooked up the pre-chemo. It's like the peanuts at the bar. You have a handful of them, and then your body is craving a beer to counter-act the saltiness. Same idea. They give me this stuff to prepare my body for the chemo. And it makes the chemo more efficient. However, the prechemo is the longest part of this whole experience, mostly because 10% of the people have a bad reaction and need to get a steriod shot, so they start the dose really low and gradually work it up every half hour. Now, I know what your thinking. Only 10% get this reaction. Those are pretty good odds. But this is me were talking about. This is the girl who went from having a "swollen gland" to a "cyst" than to Hodgkins Lymphoma and finally to Non-Hodgkins. Did we really think I was going to duck this??

Back to the story. I made it through the first 4 increases with out incident. In fact, even I began to believe I might not have a reation. (I know, I know. I should know better than to be an optommist. It just doesn't work for me.) It didn't actually seem like I was having a reaction. I just sort of got a tickle in my throat. So I drank some juice and coughed a bit. A few minutes later the tickle was back, this time a little bigger and now my throat was really dry. I had some more juice and really gave a good cough to clear my throat. Only problem was my throat didn't clear. After a small coughing fit I finally asked Amy to pass me the symptoms list that comes along with the medication. Hmmm. Shortness of breath? Not really. Lung congestion? Nope. Abnormal heart rhythm? Naha. Low blood pressure? How the hell am I supposed to tell that? Fever? Not that I noticed. Rash or sore joints? Not yet. Nausea? Nope. Nothing about a tickle in the throat or a cough. Of course it's now been close to 15 minutes and the tickle in my throat has turned into a hairball of unimaginable proportions. I finally realize, through my drugged out benedryl haze, that something isn't quite right and I ask Amy or Mom, I can't really recall, to go and get Betsy. Betsy walks in just as the hairball is starting to REALLY affect my breathing. She looks at me coughing and asks, "So, do you have a tickle in your throat?"
Now, it might just be me, but if the first question asked by the nurse to find out IF I am having a reaction is whether or not I have a tickle in my throat....maybe this is a symptom that should be included on the list. I casually, (read angrilly and panickedly) inform her that it was a tickle in my throat 15 minutes ago, and is presently a hairball blocking my airway. I then proceed to lose the ability of speach because I'm coughing so much. Betsy, unperturbed by my surliness, calmly turns off the drip and retrieves a steriod that she immediately injects into my IV. Only problem is, that it's about 10 minutes to late to stop the rest of the reactions from happening. All those previously listed reactions? Yeah... Now they show up. And it short order too. In the space of 2 minutes I go through ALL of them. Then the steriod kicks in and they literally all...go...away. As much as I complain about the fact that I have to poison my body in order to heal it, the wonders of modern medicine never really cease to amaze me.
Once I had received the steriod, we were able to start the drip up again. I had no further reactions and the rest of the pre-chemo went smoothly. Of course, I am now planning a little bit of hospital vandalism in which I go through all of their "symptoms flyers" and add "tickle in the throat" to the list. I won't get in trouble for that...right?

The only other "funny" incident worth mentioning had to do with the chemo that I call "bug juice". Why do I call it "bug juice"? Two reasons. The first, its that it is the pinkish color of the "fruit flavored" bevarage that you used to get at summer camp. And two, calling it the "stuff that is going to make my hair fall out" creeps me out a little. So anyway, the bug juice is NOT a pleasant chemical. I have had Amy telling me about it the entire ride up. In fact, she could barely look at it when they brought it in the room. (For those who haven't figured it out, Amy has already gone through this.) Betsy brought in two rather large syringes of this stuff, plus a smaller one of "the clear one". (You gotta love the names I give these things.)
So, to give you a little background. Or to at least give you the same background that I had had up to this point, the bug juice is pretty toxic. It isn't delivered through a drip, but through a push. In other words, Betsy would actually stand there and push the plunger of the syringe down while it was connected to my IV line. When Amy told me about her experience she explained how they had to constantly stop and check to make sure it wasn't leaking. They asked her if she had a burning sensation in her hand. (She didn't have a port, but was hooked up to her IV through the back of her hand) So, basically we were all prepared for these "pushes" to last awhile. Amy said it took a couple of minutes to do it. So, Betsy hooks me up and as she does so she gives me the quick explanation that this will be the one that causes my hair to fall out, yada yada yada. This is the point where I tuned her out and decided that I would refer to it as bug juice. Better for my own piece of mind. Then she starts the push. ...In one smooth, not quick, but certainly not slow movement she pushed the plunger all the way down... It took less than 20 seconds.... When I tell you that mine and Amy's eyes bugged out, I'm not down playing it. I swear, the only thing going through my mind, was that this stuff was going to pop out of my chest like that that Alien out of Sigourney Weaver.
As it turns out, having the port allows them to bypass the whole, "is the toxic bug juice eating through your veins" thing. Once again. This is something that I would probably liked to have known before hand. Honestly I have spent more time in the last two weeks imagining things popping out of my chest or springing leaks...it's ridiculous.

So, that was the first chemo experience. Nothing too dramatic. But at least my sense of the insanely-ridiculous has finally kicked in and I can look back at it and laugh. (Well laugh and plot my revenge. You know. Same difference)

As for the current moment. I'm not doing to badly. I had a small upset stomache earlier but besides that I'm OK. In fact, my meds are kicking in and so I'm going to crash now. I hope this makes up for some of my more recent, lame attempts at blogging. - Elizabeth