Day one of chemo and radiation both successfully finished yesterday, and they were as you might suspect: in order, borning and horrifying.
Chemo--well, that's a long process of doing nothing while hooked up to an IV. There was a last minute scuffle at the infusion room because one of the component drugs they were considering using for me is in nationwide shortage. This took some discussion and thought and a few phone calls out to resolve. I had settled into my Lazy Boy with my electronics arrayed around me and a book.
The chair, I was delighted to find, had heat--but no massage action. That would seem to be great enhancement when you're confined to it for hours at a time--but in fact, confined is not the right word. Part of chemo, at least for me, is a powerful diuretic that doesn't simply encourage, but demands, that one use the bathroom at regular intervals. Four times in 5 hours for me, and they seemed to be happy with my urges.
It's not difficult to appreciate the toxicity of what is being placed within the body, but it's not apparent to the naked eye. There are innocuous and relatively small bags of stuff they were hanging from my IV tree--along with the great ubiquitous saline bag. Everything was see through, clear liquid in clear plastic...nothing to hide.
Because of the kerfluffle over the missing component drug and the last minute replacement, it was decided to reduce the cisplatin dose per application, and make the applications weekly, instead of tri-weekly. Functionally, I think this may turn out to be a good thing--I'm only guessing but some of the weirdness I feel this morning may--and I just say may--be a result of chemo, or my reaction to a lack of reaction, or just plain anxiety finally rearing its head after meeting the enemy so long awaiting it.
And radiation--I've explained that enough and probably clearly so, that no surprise awaits you there. Today I go at 2 for the next application and already don't want to go. This is the Think of England moment. For this, I have to simply resign myself, as my techs are seemingly resigned, to hear of how much it's hated. They did play 60's soul and R&B to start, which is the hardest music on the planet to dislike, but then Carole King, and then the Carpenters! Why on Earth is "Rainy Days and Mondays" the soundtrack to this indignity? "Hanging around, nothing to do but frown...." seems a description of what I'm going through, a validation of what I'm feeling.
I used to do a very passable imitation of Marlene Dietrich singing that song and I'll perhaps need to dust it off and convince my radiators to crack a smile. While perfectly pleasant, they are chained to a production schedule that does not allow much leeway. Like me, most patients have a series of these treatments to get through, for which the machine is calibrated and pre-programmed, and to miss your time in line is to force a huge amount of recalculation on the spot. At least for the system that has one's settings, but still--it's ointment meeting fly.
Where the radiation facility is cold (literally) and technical-looking, the infusion room is cluttered and relatively small. Where the radiological techs are schedule driven, the two nurses in infusion, Fred and Dana, are personable but no less pressed. I tend to like to, whenever possible, minimize clutter, so I tried not to focus too much on the overly used bulletin boards, the stacks of magazines, or the dreamcatchers hanging from the ceiling tile. I understand the intent, but this doesn't evoke warmth to me, or the hugging environment of my grandmother's crowded kitchen. The only grandmother I knew was a chain smoking harridan who couldn't be bothered to cook a thing and whose main complaint in life was when anyone--ANYONE--touched her stash of ginger snap cookies that she dunked in her bottomless coffee cup. The only crowd in her kitch was on canasta night, when a group of ladies would get together in dresses that buttoned up the front to make small wagers and drink Pabst.
Today begins the process of separating out the event line I passed yesterday and the way I feel today--and frankly, today I'm nervous like a cat in a room full of rockers...it's hard to get comfortable, the antsyness is consuming some of the productivity I'd like to possess. Is that Cisplatin knocking at my door? Or is it the weird sleep pattern I've been in where I sleep 3 or 4 hours and then get up hourly to suction my throat or pee, or drink water? I don't know what comes from what...
All I know is it's underway, this, and with the steady clunk clunk clunk the roller coster is heading for hill one. Usually a warm up, not a complete shock, a pinch to the system before the upside down or the belly roll.
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