Chemo #2



    I received my second round of chemo on Friday, February 25. My appointment was at 8:30am. The night before my past two chemo appointments have felt strange. Normally, taking a day off work is an exciting thing for me. However, taking off work for chemo has felt the opposite of exciting. So, I have felt this in between state of “feeling excited because I don’t have to go to work the next day” and “not looking forward to a full day at the West Cancer Clinic”.

    My mom and I arrive at the West Cancer Clinic and check in. The building is more crowded than I would have expected. That feeling of “I don’t belong here” is still present. I am the youngest one in the building. When people look at me I wonder if they know I am the one with cancer or if they think I am supporting my Mom.

    After waiting in the lobby for a few minutes, I get a text message telling me to “proceed through the infusion door for treatment”. My nurse for the day greets me and takes me to my chair where I will be having the infusion. My Mom helps me prepare my hair for cold capping and we get the cold cap situated on my head. The nurse comes and gets my IV in my arm and begins giving me the pre-infusion meds. The cold cap feels more painful this time. I’m not sure if that’s because it was tighter on my head this time or if it was colder because I had lost some hair since the last time.

    After the pre-infusion meds are done, my nurse begins giving me one of my chemo drugs – taxotere. After a few minutes of receiving the taxotere, I start to feel this sensation in my chest and throat and it starts to feel harder to breathe. I tell my Mom and she gets the nurse. They stop giving me the Taxotere and give me some Benadryl. After some Benadryl, they start the Taxotere again on a slower drip. This time, I don’t have breathing trouble but I do start to break out in hives on my chin and neck. Because of these reactions, the nurse decides to stop giving the Taxotere.

    They give me my second chemo drug – cytoxan. Everything goes fine with the Cytoxan. Once the Cytoxan is done, I wait another 90 minutes to finish up with the cold cap. And the last thing I had to do before leaving was receive my Neulasta patch. My doctor prescribed me the Neulasta patch to receive at the end of every chemo infusion. It is a patch that goes on my stomach and will boost my white blood cell count. I’m hoping this patch speeds up the recovery process in between infusions!

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