Chemo 5 Done!

As I write this I must tell you that it is 5:30 in the morning and....I've been awake since 1:00 am. How much does that suck?!!

I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

24 hours ago? I was sleeping. In fact I slept all the way through until 9:30 am. Nice. When I woke up I realized it was "chemo day". Yuck. It was the start of new drugs so I had to get there at 11:30 instead of 2:00 so I realized I had to get moving. Mom and dad picked me up at 11:15 and off we went with magazines and suduko and crosswords and blankets and drinks in hand. We were going to be there for 4 1/2 hours so we needed "stuff".

I don't know if I've ever explained how chemo goes. First you go in and get a "finger prick" blood test. Painless. They test to make sure you're well enough to have the chemo. Then they say yes and start the chemo. You go to the chemo room . There's about 20 recliners in the room and you choose where you want to sit. They always have lots of hard candies around the room and lots of magazines to read. I take my own magazines because I'm a "germaphobe" and don't like to read magazines that other people have touched (especially men who rarely wash their hands after going to the bathroom - ewww!!). Anyway, then they start up the chemo (through the port). They always start with other stuff first. The first four times it was always an anti-nausea drug. For these last four it's various drugs but it includes a steroid and lots of Benedril. People tend to get allergic reactions to these particular chemo drugs so Benedril is given to counter-act that. Then they started the Herceptin. All went well. Then they started the Taxol. This is the one where you could get an allergic reaction....and I did. The nurse was standing there talking to me and she saw that I was getting hives all over my chest and neck. She stopped the Taxol, upped the Benedril and, after about 10 minutes started the Taxol again at a slower drip. Then, this is very interesting, she started "something else" and she and my mom are chatting and I get, well? A funny feeling. Down there. I'm like, "ahh Kit? I'm getting, well....." And she says "Is your crotch burning?". I'm like, "Well, sorta, yah" She says "It happens to all the women". Interesting. My mom says "What about the men, what happens to them?" Kit says "nothing". Then we got into a discussion about mammograms and the boob squeezing and how if men had to get their scrotums squeezed down to be as thin as a sheet of paper, there would definitely be a new test within a very short period of time.

Well, needless to say, all the stopping and slow drip made my session go much longer. It was fun, though. No nausea to speak of. My daddy went and got us Wendy's for lunch. I had my momma's undivided attention for the whole time. The nurse chatted with us and we laughed and cried and laughed some more. Really, if you have to have chemo? This is a good way to go! Anyway, we didn't get out of there until just before 5:00 so it was a 5 1/2 hour session. I was exhausted when we got home so I went to lie down.

Have you ever had Benedril? Well, I gotta tell you, this stuff makes my brain "buzz". A very high pitched buzz that won't go away. It also makes my brain "race". Thoughts, just random thoughts, going through my brain very quickly. Annoying. So, instead of napping I just lay there. I tried to watch tv but my brain was too buzzy and racey (not porn racy!) so that didn't work. I finally got to sleep around 6:30 and woke up at 7:00 - not much of a nap.

I had called Andrew and told him to take care of dinner. Well, the poor guy didn't get home till after 8:00! Long story that includes a 1/2 hour wait in the pharmacy line, not getting what he needed then another wait in the Walmart 10 item line where a woman had 30 items (he counted) and then going to Subway to pick up dinner but their bank machine was down and he had no cash so off to Quizno's and finally home. Boy, was he was grumpy when he got home. He promptly poured himself some wine. Interesting thing about chemo? The smell of alcohol is just gross!! No kissing for him.

We went to bed at the usual time and I woke up at 1:00 am. I tossed and turned till 2:00. Learned something "good to know". If Andrew's snoring? I just have to cough and it wakes him up and he switches position. Anyway, I got up and went to the living room and read until 4:30. Went back to bed sure I'd sleep. Wrong. Checked the clock at 5:00. Again at 5:03. Again at 5:06. Then I realized I was checking the clock every 3 minutes so it turned into a game. I started purposely trying to check it every 3 minutes. I only made it 2 minutes so I started counting to 60 three times. Well, that got old fast so here I am writing in my blog. My dog keeps talking to me. Darn dog.

So, that's it for now. Kevin's up getting ready for school. Andrew's up in the shower so I guess I'll go have some coffee and watch some tv and hope that I'll be able to nap today.

TTFN!