A day at the clinic

I survived our first day back at work!  6 hours of Smart Board training.  I don't know how much I'll actually retain, but it was interesting.  I'm going to give myself grace and not worry about using too much new technology.  There will be plenty of time for that as I feel better.

I realized today that lots of people are curious about how my chemo treatments actually work, so I thought I'd give a little detail.  It really is quite a process.  We go in to the Hemotology and Oncology Clinic at PCI.  The visit starts with one of the nurses accessing my port and drawing blood for labs.  Then I go back to the waiting room while the labs are run.  Then they call me back again, get my weight, and then we go to a room to meet with my Nurse Practitioner, Sylvia.  Actually, we usually see Marcia, my scheduler, first.  She takes my blood pressure and temperature and pulse.  Then, often my nurse Candace will come in and ask a million questions about how I'm feeling.  Then Sylvia will come in once my lab results are in.   We'll discuss the labs and see what we need to do.  Then we'll go back to the chemo area.  By this time we've usually been there almost an hour.  I'll go pick out a comfy purple chair and settle in.  There are 4 chemo nurses, and one of them will come over and get a small bag of saline going while all my drugs are being mixed.  Then we'll start with anti-nausea drugs, steroids, and now also benedryl and other antihistimines.  Each drug has its own infusion time.  Some only take 15 minutes, others take an hour or more.  If my potassium is low, it takes 2 hours to infuse it.  The actual chemo drug comes last.  Once it's done, they make sure I'm feeling ok and don't need any extra anti-nausea drugs or lorazipam.  Then I'm free to go.  It usually takes around 3 hours for all the infusions.  They have snacks and drinks, so Darrin always has some pistachios, and I often have pretzels.  There are also some really good granola bars.  There is grape juice and cranberry juice, too.

If I'm there in the morning, I get a visit from Sue, who does wonderful foot massages.  The chemo area is kept pretty cool, so I always wrap up in my wonderful purple prayer shawl and my pink blanket.  Darrin and I have spent the weeks writing the melodrama for the 8th graders.  Actually- Darrin has written the melodrama and I have slept most of the time. Sometimes the chemo area is really quiet, and other times it's like party central.  There are 20+ chairs in the infusion area, so it can get pretty busy, and some of the patients and their families are kind of loud.  Some people talk on the phone or work, others sleep or read.  Most people have someone with them.   We counted up the days recently-  I was supposed to have 12 so far- 4 treatments, 4 shots, and 4 lab days. However, I've spent over 40 days this summer in a chemo chair. I had so much trouble with the first round of drugs that I ended up going in everyday for a week after each treatment to get shots and anti-nausea meds.  It's been a lot, but it ended up working- this last round of the Red Devil has been ok.  I haven't had any nausea to speak of- just lots of anxiety. Not quite what any one expected, but my team has been so wonderful and so encouraging. We're all really hoping that starting this Thursday things will go much more smoothly.  So- that's basically how my summer has been since I started chemo on June 19th.  It has been a fascinating learning experience about a whole new world.