Chemo Day(s)
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Wondering what the chemo routine is like for Traci? Come on, she’ll take you on a little tour.
Sunday Funday
Though I get chemo on Mondays, the process actually begins the day before. Every Sunday, I go to the hospital to get bloodwork done, which means going to the Infusion Center and having the nurse access my chemo port and get a few tubes of blood. This blood goes to the lab to be tested so the doctor will have the results for Monday.
If things go well, I’m in and out in half an hour.
Monday Chemo Day
9:00 a.m.
The day usually begins with a visit to my oncologist friend, Dr. Van Meter. She asks me the same questions each week about my health and listens to my heart and lungs. If the blood shows that my liver is okay, then I get sent down to the infusion center for chemo.
9:30
Once I get to the infusion center, they put me in a room (usually with another patient getting chemo) and do my vital signs again. Unfortunately, there is usually just a lot of waiting around at this point.
10:00
I wait for the first set of drugs to arrive from the pharmacy. When it shows up, they get me hooked up to the IV, and give me an anti-nausea drug, a steroid, and Pepcid all through my IV. They follow that up with some Benadryl.
All of that usually takes at least an hour or two. Then there is more waiting while they order the actual chemo drug from the pharmacy. This can take 20 minutes or more than an hour.
Noon
Once it arrives, it takes an hour for the whole bag of the chemo drug to go through the IV. All in all, I spend 3-4 hours at the hospital.
1:00-ish
Spencer picks me up and we get something to eat on the way back home. The meds make me pretty sleepy, so as soon as he heads back to work, it’s nap time for me.
Then it’s a few days of feeling lousy, a few of feeling okay but exhausted, and then repeating the whole process. Halfway done. Eight treatments down, eight to go.