Week 9 - Friday 29th May

This last week as been pretty hectic.  I've had my first chemo treatment, I'm officially having to shield due to my chemo treatment, and had my first full week's worth of radiotherapy.  To top that, I'm a day behind with my usual posting date.  However, I didn't stress about getting this done yesterday, as I had to listen to my body and decide what was best. More about that later!

This time last week, I had my first chemo treatment.  I was apprehensive about this one, mainly due to potential side effects.  Turns out that was the least of my worries.  I'll run through the day.  I was booked in for a 9 am start, and first you get weighed and measured.  I then had to provide enough urine to make sure treatment could get underway (some patients don't drink enough, and you don't want chemo sitting in your kidney's all week).  I always have to have a bottle of water or squash near me, I get nervous if I don't have enough fluids.

My nurse and healthcare worker in the day center (there are several areas where there's one of each working) who were looking after me and 4 others in our "ward", then provided me with about 10 tablets (steroids and anti sickness), and then started to warm my hands up for the cannula.  This didn't go too great, and I'll detail this a bit more at the bottom, clearly marked so you don't need to read it, if you don't want to.

After getting the cannula sorted, they could start with treatment.  There are several stages to treatment, I don't just go in, get my chemo and off I trot.  I have a bag of hydrating fluids put through, followed by another bag for my kidneys.  Then I get the chemo drug, in my case cisplatin.  Then I get a flush, and then another hydration bag.  

I honestly didn't feel any different to when I arrived in the morning, and walked away as though nothing had happened.  The following day I had no appetite (normal side effect), and was feeling a bit tired (due to lack of sleep during the night).  By the time I got to Sunday afternoon, I was feeling more normal.  The two days after I have treatment, I need to follow up with more steroids and anti-sickness, and I have additional anti-sickness tablets to take, in case I need to.  However, that's not been the case.

As this week as gone on, I have been taking less of my painkillers, codeine, as the pain has decreased.  Wednesday was the first morning where I didn't take any pain medication, however Thursday came the side effect of coming off them, which is diarrhea.  I have never experienced anything like it.  Codeine causes constipation with long term use.  Coming off the tablets, as well as the mega hot weather we're having, meaning I'm drinking water like a fish, means Niagara Falls!

If that's the only side effect I get throughout my whole treatment, I'm winning!

I have to also add, every day I have my Rad treatment, the team there always ask how I am, give me any advice for concerns or changes I've noticed, and if anything needs looking into more, they'll do that for me. I feel so supported, and I truly believe trying to stay positive will help me through this.

As always, look out for one another, stay home, and stay well. xxx

More info about my cannula (I'll add a couple of pictures from my garden, just to make sure of no accidents).

Keep scrolling to read...

Last chance....

So they could find veins, but they weren't very prominent.  They decided to go for the right hand first, and got Sarah, "if anyone can find one, she can".  She got it in, with quite a bit of moving around.  They then put a flush through to check it's ok, then follow with saline.  Unfortunately the area the cannula was inserted started to swell dramatically, so the nurse stopped the machine with immediate effect.  On to the other hand then.

Time for the left hand, and there wasn't success with that either.  It went in, appeared fine, started putting saline through and straight away my thumb, followed by forefinger went incredibly cold, and I could see them going white.  At this point I swore and was telling them this, and they stopped immediately.  This one puzzled them as everything was doing what it should until that point.

I was begging in my head to have a PICC (peripherally inserted catheter line) inserted, as I didn't want to experience this every week.  This is a line that is in my vein going towards my heart, and comes out from your arm.

They called in the troops and got someone with an ultrasound scanner to find a vein and do it for them.  This was much more pleasant and less stressful, and a week later you can barely see where he put it, unlike the other two, which are bruised.

Since then, I had a PICC line put in yesterday, so my next treatment which is on Monday, can go much more smoothly.