Girl Interrupted

This could be my last “feeling fabulous” post for a while. I am T-minus 90 minutes until chemotherapy. I am scared.

Yesterday I went in for an hour of training on how it all works and what to expect. It was overwhelming. I have an entire notebook of how it works, what the side effects could be, and what to do. The woman who did the training was amazing. She was brilliant and had a wicked sense of humor. And she talked a mile-a-minute just like me. I feel as prepared as a person could when about to receive large doses of medication designed to break you down a bit.

I have a purse full of drugs ready for side-effect combat. It took multiple drug stores, and I still have two drugs that needed ordered that still need picked up. I just took a super-dose of prednisone as instructed this morning and that is probably making me feel even more anxious that I already did. I also took a drug that will help my kidneys process the destroyed cancer cells. When you have a large tumor, the dead cells resulting from chemotherapy can cause havoc.

I will be at chemotherapy all day – receiving both biological and chemotherapy. The biological agent they are using that is specific to Non-Hodgkins works like a miracle drug, but it can be a bit difficult to tolerate so they deliver it very very slowly and monitor it closely. In fact, a majority of my day will be spent receiving this one drug. If it goes well, it can take less time on my future visits.
The oncology center is nice – I had an opportunity to walk through yesterday and see the treatment area. She said because I’ll be all there all day, they will probably put in a bed (rather than a treatment chair). I have a bag packed with the iPad, reading material, and snacks. They don’t have a cafeteria, so you have to bring food in with you.

I need to go finish packing up. I’m hoping to be able to blog later. But we shall see.