My First Chemo Treatment.

First day of Chemotherapy…

Wednesday was my first day of chemo treatment and the process really isn’t that bad, I don’t recommend you go out and try it, but I really wasn’t that bad. My chest is still bruised so the nurse injected me with lidacaine to numb up the area before she put the inch and a half long needle into the port in my chest. I didn’t feel a thing this time! I received a number of different injections through the IV; the first was antibodies with anti-nausea medicine and steroids. Then I received a test of Bleomycin to make sure my body didn’t have a reaction, I didn’t have one so that was good. After that they gave me Adriamoycin and Vinblastine through a syringe that is hooked up to my IV. Once that was done I was hooked up to a drip bag of Dacarbazine that takes an hour to drip into my body. Once this is done I received the final dosage of Bleomycin. I might be getting wrong if the Vinblastine was the one that took an hour long and the Dacarbazine was through a syringe. But I think you all get the picture…The cancer center is really nice and everyone that works there is very friendly. I just watched the Discovery Chanel and hung out with Rachel.

I felt great going home, and I felt really fine when I got home. Rachel and I needed to clean the house because her parent’s fly in today so I helped by vacuuming the area rugs. That wasn’t a great idea, when I was done I started sweating pretty heavily out of my head. I sat down for about 20 minutes and when I stood up I felt really light headed and dizzy. I took some medicine to help with nausea and drank a bunch of fluids. I felt much better a few hours later, I felt I had a touch of the flu but I was not throwing up or anything. I was curious to how I was going to sleep through the night, but I had no problem falling asleep. I woke up at 4:30 this morning with a stomach ache and didn’t fall back asleep until about 6ish so that was the only hiccup.

Overall I am so happy that I finally have the treatment going and start moving forward. I cannot wait for the next six months to be over, but I just have to take it one day at a time. I really hope I do not have to follow up chemo with radiation or more chemo, and I don’t think that will be the case. I just want to be healthy and back to normal before April 9, 2011 (that’s our wedding date, we are getting hitched outside of New Orleans at Oak Alley Plantation, the plantation home and grounds are absolutely amazing). The only time I get a little emotional right now is thinking about the wedding and wanting to be healthy for it and be able to celebrate it with my family, friends, and of course Rachel. I am positive I will be just fine by then, but It is just a matter of getting there…I just never pictured myself at the age of 28 having to go through this. But like all you have said, this is just a little speed bump to get over. Again, thank you for all your response and messages, they really mean a lot to me. I hope you all have great extended weekend and enjoy the time off! Cheers!

P.S. I have posted a picture of where the doc has cut me open. The top scar is where I had my lymph node biopsy and the scar at the bottom is where the put the port into my chest. You can kind of see the bruising by the bottom scar and that is from the doctor fishing the cord from the port to my main artery.