Chemo Final Day of Round 1

So first off, right now I feel like a million bucks! I just took a shower, and shaved for the first time since Sunday. I haven't been able to shower during the week because the Port-a-cath that is inside my chest has been accessed all week long. Which means that there has been a needle in it with a short tube attached to it for the whole week which has kept me from enjoying the wonderfulness of a hot shower.

So today was the final day of Round 1. So that means I only have 11 more rounds to go. the next full round will start on Oct. 27 and thats when I will repeated the 5 consecutive days of chemo again. Until then I will just go in each Monday and receive...for lack of a better word..shot of chemo. It will be very quick.

So I wanted to answer a question posted in my comments by Ginger.

She said "How does Chemo work?"

That is a very good question I guessed I fail to really describe what all takes place when I go get chemo because I have done the whole fight with cancer thing before and it isn't anything new to me. I am sorry to all of you readers who have had to use your own imagination to determine what goes on when I say I went to go get chemo. So I will do my best attempt to describe exactly what goes on.

Once I arrive at the Hospital. I ask for the Urine cup so that I can take care of that business first and then the nurses take my vitals (temperature and blood pressure) to make sure that I don't have a fever because then I would have to be admitted into the hospital and stay overnight until it goes away.

After vitals, the nurse hooks my port-a-cath tube up to the IV pole. Then they hook me up to a bag of potassium water and hydrate me for an hour. (This is to flush my bladder and kidneys in preparation for the chemo.

So after an hour of being pumped with a lot of potassium water they then hook up one of the bags of chemo and it is pumped into my body by way of the port-a-cath in my chest. The chemo is a lightly tinted blue liquid. The first bag of chemo takes about an hour to pump into my body and the second bag takes only about a half an hour. So all together with hydration the chemo process takes about three hours after all the paper work and checking in and out of the clinic is all taken care of.

And before the start of chemo I am given two pills (Zofran, and Ativan) which are used to help my body against the nausea that chemo can cause.

Once the chemo is inside of my body, It destroys everything in its path the good and the bad. Since it kills everything in its path I am under close doctor supervision to make sure that I have good red blood and white blood cell counts. If my blood counts get to low I am admitted into the hospital and given one or two blood transfusions depending on how bad my blood count is.

Ginger I hope that helps you understand "How chemo works?"

If this description has raised new questions please shoot away!

Well that is all for today and I have a day of from chemo tomorrow so my next post will be on Monday.

Thanks again for all your prayers, thoughts, and cards! They really do make a difference!

Pill Total: 20