Chemo Treatment Day One

My husband and I started our day at 5:30am yesterday morning (01/07/2025) by getting up and leaving the house by 6:30am to make sure we arrived early so we could figure out where to go. We arrived early enoug that we got a good parking spot. I was originally told to go to the fourth floor of the cancer institute to get labs done through my port. However that wasn’t the case. I had to go back down the the second floor and register with my oncologist first. When we got to the oncologists office, they weren’t open for another half hour (7:00 we arrived at the oncologist office, they didn’t open until 7:30). Get signed in and then sent across the hall for labs. They had to get me twice with a needle because the first one was to short and I had swelling still going on from port placement. They finally got the needle in, and back to the oncologist’s office we went. We spoke to the oncologist first, going over everything and making sure we both understood what was going to be happening during chemo and potentially after chemo. Once the doctor’s visit was over, that’s when we went to the fourth floor.

Once to the fourth floor, I sign in the receptionist and brought back almost immediately. I took a window seat since I love looking out and I wanted to see the construction that they were doing to the other side of the hospital. They gave me three liquids first before my chemo meds. One was Benadryl, another was a steroid and I can’t remember what the third one was. While we waited for the meds to kick in my arms started to twitech and then into a full on flail. The nurse told us that usually people get restless legs with the pre-meds, but never with the arms. So we were all laughing. However there was a lady across the way who looked at me with disgust and older prejudic. I had Michael close the curtain so she would stop staring at me. At the beginning of the chemo round, Michael and I were playing Diablo III on the switch when all of a sudden my head nodded down and scared myself awake. Michael saw this and told me to sleep. So I did. Callie took a trip around the little area. The nurses all loved her and one nurse thought Callie was a real pet at one point.

I remember that at one point the nurse went to take my blood pressure and scared me awake. However I couldn’t keep my eyes open enough before I fell back to sleep. I remember waking up a little bit after 2pm saying that treatment was done. We went home and I slept most of the day away. I stayed on top of my anti-nausea meds and thank god I haven’t gotten sick. Chemotherapy is not for the weak hearted. However everything is going amazingly. I’m just super exhausted.

I’ve noticed from my cancer notebook and trying some food, that I can no longer do spicy food. Which makes me super upset. I love spicy food… It’s going to be a long five-six months of no spicy. I’ll be giving updates as we go through various chemo treatments. So stay tuned!