Hello everyone! I have finished my first chemo leg of my nationwide cancer-fighting tour and am now safely back in Illinois resting up for round 2 so I thought I'd take a minute to get everyone up to speed on where we're at in my crazy cancer journey.
After carrying around my chemo-filled fanny pack 24 hours a day for 5 days, it was a sweet relief to finally get unhooked.
It's amazing how free you feel when you don't have to wear a fanny pack while you sleep, pee, and bath (okay, to be fair, I didn't actually wear it in the bathtub, just gave the tubing a little slack and left it on the side of the tub, but still only baths, no showers and I had to be super careful to not get it wet)!
Ah, the simple things in life :)
As if 5 straight days of chemotherapy wasn't enough, my little portable pump had some sort of calibration problem and was losing time the last 2 days I wore it.
The way the pump works, the nurse hooks it up to a bag of chemo and sets the pump for its correct dosing or whatever and you go out on your merry way with strict instructions to return to the hospital the next day about an hour before the 24 hour infusion is up.
Then when your pump beats promptly at the 24 hour mark signaling that the infusion is done, they change the bag and restart it.
However, something went was wrong with the timing on my pump, causing my infusion to slow down and my pump to go off an hour and a half late on Sunday, and then another hour later on Monday.
So though for all purposes, my infusions should have been done by 5 pm Monday night, I was there until 8.
Of course, I'm the only person that the nurses had ever heard of this happening to-I have great luck when it comes to things going wrong lol!
Anyway, when my pump FINALLY went off, I had to get an infusion of Cytoxan.
If you ever want to start doing chemotherapy drugs for fun, I would not recommend starting with Cytoxan.
Your body is unable to metabolize it very well so they advise you to drink as much as possible and pee as much as possible to get it out of your system quickly.
But the worst part is that it burns your nostrils so while you're getting it your nose feels like it's on fire.
Not fun, but thankfully it's quick and is done in 30 minutes.
So, despite the pump problem and the icky Cytoxan, I finished round one of DA-EPOCH-FR!
Woo hoo!
I was able to fly home the following day, arriving home yesterday afternoon after a blissfully uneventful flight.
After a week of chemo and living in a hotel room, my own bed was a very welcoming sight.
So far I feel really good, perhaps a little more tired than usual, but overall okay.
I even had the energy to brave the crowds at Woodfield and get my Christmas shopping done.
My white blood cell counts are expected to nosedive so I was sent home with a small fortune of Neupogen vials, a drug that raises your white counts to hopefully prevent me from catching every germ that comes my way.
I've had to give myself shots of it before, but they were always pre-filled-NIH is leaving the measuring and filling up to me, so on the bright side, I've been getting some invaluable experience if I ever get to go to nursing school like I want to!
Anyway, next round of chemo is scheduled for December 22-26th, I will make sure to update everyone within a few days and I hope to see many of you at the benefit on December 13th!!!
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