Friday 25 February 2011

Round 2 of Chemo - Wednesday 23 Feb

As much as I knew what to expect I can't say that I was looking forward to today. To some degree the reality was a different experience than Round 1.

It started off much the same. Neil dropped me off at the hospital at 10.00am for my 10.30 appointment. I checked how the clinic was running. I was not surprised that Dr Wasan had not even arrived so it would be running over an hour late! I scurried off to the cafe for a cup of tea and read of the paper. I saw the oncologist eventually  at 11.45 a.m, they are obviously seriously over worked. He registered my side effects and the fact that my blood cells were only just recovering from the chemo so decided to reduce the chemo dosage and to still take 3 hours for the infusion. So it looked like I would be there the best part of the day again.

I hit the chemo suite and as there were no chairs free I got the single bed in the alcove which is quite private and I actually preferred it  - the nurse laughed when I asked if I could book it for next time. After 4 attempts to find a vein in my right hand (as the plan was to give the left a rest from the tingling) we had to resort to the left where they found a vein straight away.  This time the nurse decided to use  heat pads, these are like the wheat heat pads you can heat up in the microwave that you can buy in health shops. It really worked as there was no pain as the infusion went in and was very comforting. I settled down for 3 hours - with the aid of two cups of tea, a newspaper and the third novel in the True Blood series time passed very quickly.

Neil picked me at 4.00 p.m, wrapped up in my hat scarf gloves and padded jacket I was taking no risks at being exposed to the cold. In fact it was the opposite I was a bit too warm! I felt less wobbly than last time so ate some food and watched some TV during the evening. I kept well away from the fridge and wore the thin insulate gloves that Chris & Philip bought me and the tingling was kept at bay and has not been as severe as last time - let's hope that it lasts. So battening down the hatches over the next few days to ride out any immediate side effects.

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