Starting Chemo
Getting your port installed really kicks off this strange journey. I was terrified to get mine. I thought it seemed barbaric. In reality, the port saves a lot of time and discomfort, but you couldn’t tell me that at first. Portacath (Port), an implantable port, is basically a pin cushion attached to a catheter threaded into your vena cava, a large vein that runs right into your system. It’s a minor surgical procedure to provide a hidden, reliable access point for medications like chemotherapy, IV fluids, blood transfusions, or to draw blood. It is inserted just under the skin. The port is accessed with a special Huber needle, which is inserted through a self-sealing rubber contact point on the port’s surface. You still get poked every time.
Not knowing what to expect, all I could think was, How is this going to work? I took my mother for treatments, but she went to her doctor’s office, not the infusion center. I’m not sure there was an infusion center in Kingston back then. It was just a backroom with recliner chairs and infusion pumps on steel stands. It was a depressing sight. My mom was a nurse herself, so the moment we walked in, her friends would take over, and I could go back to work for a while. I didn’t pay much attention. I was too shocked and incredulous at her illness. She never complained, and she did not get as sick as I did, not from the chemo. She could eat, and she did. My mother was an emotional eater. Eating gave her comfort. She had a double mastectomy, and she did lose her hair, but otherwise seemed to tolerate her treatment well. And all I had to go by was that book, which I can’t remember the name of, probably on purpose, and the red devil and mouth sores. I also had a list as long as the Great Wall of China of side effects from the chemo. It was overwhelming.
The doctor gave me prescriptions for all kinds of things, like mouthwash with lidocaine in case of mouth sores from the chemo, and anti-nausea meds in case you get sick. But as I said before, don’t let your imagination get the better of you. I didn’t need any of that. My first treatment was scary, I won’t lie. And I felt like I was a newbie in the sense that everybody else seemed resolved and accepted their treatment quietly without complaint, and I was clueless.
The infusion center was located in an old hospital, the hospital where I was born. Which, in a way, was comforting but in another way, strange. It was much more pleasant than my mother’s doctor’s office. You have a private room; unless they are busy, you might have a roommate. The rooms have a bathroom, a window, and a TV. The nurses are very kind and patient. They understand your deer-in-the-headlights persona. I feel for the nurses who treat newbies like me. It is funny that I was more afraid of them poking my newly installed port than the actual chemo. They have a Biofreeze that they can spray on the port site to numb it, but it doesn’t work, and it is just as unpleasant to get sprayed with that stuff. It’s just a prick, like getting blood drawn. It’s better to just get it over with. I made a fool of myself being such a baby. I finally just sucked it up. Go ahead, poke me. So all told, I had 12 chemo treatments and fluids and a blood transfusion through that port, so I was poked at least 24 times. Funny how you think things like that.
It took way longer than I expected because you get all kinds of pre-meds. They give you Benadryl in case of an allergic reaction. You get liquid Pepcid for your stomach, and Decadron, a powerful corticosteroid to help ease symptoms from chemotherapy. This all takes a few hours. Then the nurse comes in with the ‘red devil’ and administers it through your port via a 60cc syringe, not the infusion pump. She is dressed in what looks like a hazmat suit. This picture is actually the nurse giving me the first dose. I sat there in horror as she slowly pushed the plunger, watching the red liquid slide through the catheter into my body. Nothing happened. I survived. Next was the Cytoxan, which was administered via infusion pump. That took another 45 minutes. And my first treatment was over. Brian dropped me off at the hospital, but did not come in or stay with me; I went alone. He couldn’t take it. Good thing it wasn’t him getting poked.
The first rounds of the AC chemo didn’t start to affect me much at first. At least it didn’t appear to have an adverse effect, but then everything felt surreal. Since I was still working, I planned my treatments for Thursdays, leaving me the weekend to deal with side effects, if any. On Friday, I had to go in for a Neulasta injection to stimulate my bone marrow, which gets depleted from the chemo. They would also give me a bag of fluids, which had a soothing effect. After the second round of chemo, my hair started falling out in clumps. Brian shaved my head for me because my few remaining hairs made me look like an alien melon head. Surprisingly, I looked better, totally bald. It looked cool, like Sinead O’Connor. She made bald cool. I was cool, and I only had flu-like symptoms from the AC chemo. I thought I got this.
