Today is the day, with the appointment at 1:30pm for Lisa's first chemotherapy infusion. She's understandably apprehensive... we all are. Even though the oncologist says he's not expecting any problems, everyone reacts a bit differently to the same initial mix. We're praying that it goes smoothly with few (and hopefully not any) side effects, and that those that might occur be easily managed by the staff with realtime adjustments to offset them quickly. The most common, if they occur, are nausea and chills. Lisa is to tell the staff immediately if she has discomfort or unpleasant sensations, and they'll normally pause the flow and give her anti-nausea meds or certain steroids to take care of it before restarting. It's a well-established protocol and they know what to do along the way as needed. I'll be right there with her. As I've mentioned before, they expect no "take home" side effects these first several treatments other than more fatigue.
update 6pm: Arrived at 1:30pm, out at 5:00. The chemo infusion went wonderfully... no problems at all, and in fact Lisa slept through part of it (with the help of a little Ativan). The 'unveiling' and first use of the port went smoothly also, and Lisa couldn't even tell when the very considerate tech, Patrick, put the needle in. The worst part of the entire afternoon was the 'pre-briefing' when the nurse meets their legal obligation and tells you all the possible side effects of the particular chemotherapy drugs you're getting. Lisa joked that "it sounds like the cure is worse than the disease", but thankfully the particular drugs in her 'cocktail' have low instances of those side effects. We're praying she has none, but we do have anti-nausea medicine on hand since that's the most common other than fatigue, which is a certainty. The fatigue will start to become much more pronounced in about five days from now, as her red blood count is affected and she becomes slightly anemic, and then stay pretty steady until 21 days from now when it will get worse again, but at that time she gets a week off between treatments. Lisa will also be more prone to infection as her white blood cell count goes down, and has to stay away from crowds. We have surgical masks for any visitors to the house when the time comes. Otherwise, she can do any activities she feels up to doing, and is encouraged to walk a bit every day.
Our treatment nurse, Molly, was wonderful, and in fact she goes to our church... our family doctor, Randy Middleton, who also goes to our church, had called her to ask her to be on watch for Lisa. Molly even prayed with us before the procedure, and expects to be Lisa's treatment nurse for each Thursday's chemo session.
Michael
