Chemo Round #1
Hey shawties,
Coming to you ~ L I V E ~ from “well week” is your favorite gal pal with a defective boob. ;)
On Wednesday, January 25th, I received my first round of chemotherapy and have been attempting to get through the symptoms and back to normal!
Leading up to chemo I had my port placed the Friday before! A port is basically a direct line to your heart that is placed in your chest. It is used to connect to an IV that administers the chemo cocktail. A port is necessary because chemo can not be given through a normal IV as it will damage the veins in your arm. In order to get my port I had a little surgery, it went smoothly but I was definitely a bit out of it.
This is a Chemo Port!Then two days later, on Sunday, I had egg retrieval surgery for my fertility preservation. Unlike port placement, I was placed entirely under with anesthesia and it was a bit more involved of a procedure. Unfortunately, after waking up and waiting in recovery for the usual 45 minutes I got up to get dressed and passed out. #livelaughlove I was able to get more fluids and was much better after that. Not long after…
The BIG DAY was here!!
Wednesday finally arrived and we began at 8:30 with an appointment with the oncologist. Following the appointment, Mom wheeled our wagon of supplies and goodies to the third floor chemo room and we got started!
We didn’t know what to bring so we brought everything!Since this was my first round of chemo, the drugs were administered at a slower rate and each was followed by a waiting period to ensure that I did not have a bad reaction. This meant that my first drug started at 9:30 and I finished receiving the last one at 3:30.
Unfortunately, right around lunchtime the oncologist made a surprise appearance in the infusion room. She very matter of factly informed us that there was an issue with my previous lymph node biopsy and I would need another one in order to confirm the cancer had not spread. Needless to say, Mom and I were devastated. If the lymph node did have cancer, not only would my treatment change but my stage would escalate. So we scheduled a biopsy for the following Monday, Jan 30th. I pushed it out of my head for the rest of the day, and we kept going.
The majority of the morning was spent receiving immunotherapy drugs, steroids, and anti-nausea meds. This meant that I wouldn’t necessarily began to feel any side effects from the chemo until 48 hours after.
However, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies! Since I chose to participate in Cold Capping, Mom and I had quite a bit of work to do and rarely found ourselves sitting still.
We ~ L O V E ~ Cold Capping
Cold Capping is an attempt to save your hair throughout chemotherapy. Basically, I wear a thick gel-like shower cap that is frozen in liquid nitrogen and exchange it every 25 minutes. The thought behind this is that the cold will constrict the veins in my scalp and it will prevent the chemo from reaching my hair follicles! However, because it is SO COLD the caps can actually cause migraines and because they have to be changed every 25 minutes it is a very laborious process.
Mom has the glorious job of changing the cold caps which is actually an incredibly hard job because of how long it goes on throughout the day. You have to begin Cold Capping at least an hour before you receive your first chemo drug and continue capping for four hours following the end of your last chemo drug. This meant that Mom and I were capping from 12:30 to 7:30 on Wednesday. #YIKES
Once 7:30 hit on Wednesday, we had done it!!!
The following days were interesting and oddly enough what bothered me the most at first was my shoulder! I realized that when I had passed out, days before chemo and after egg retrieval surgery, I had tweaked my shoulder when the nurses caught me!
As for the two weeks after chemo, it was a whirlwind of sickness but I got through it & have finally reached my “well week”! I am in my third & final week before the next round on Feb. 15th, so my symptoms have calmed down and I am finally starting to feel more like myself.
However, the stress around the questionable lymph node was creeping in.
Due to the snowstorm that shut down Fort Worth, it wasn’t until a full week later that I received the results from my lymph node biopsy. Thankfully it was happy news, and the doctor confirmed that the cancer has not spread to my lymph nodes!
WOOOOOO!!!!
So as I am finally feeling better, it is time to do the whole thing all over again. Stayed tuned as your girly (with healthy lymph nodes) tackles round 2 in the coming days! After Wednesday we will only have 4 more rounds to go!
TaTa for now,
Mags ;)
