28. Chemo II

On Monday I had a massage with Carlie. I finally could lay on my tummy, but needed to have a couple of rolled up towels under my forehead to reduce the boob squish. The scar tissue in the right boob and the port just above the left boob don't like being flattened too much. The massage was nice and relaxing and I do think that it helped me with the chemo the next day. My feet didn't swell up like last time and I also had a good nights sleep on Monday.

10.30am appointment for chemo on Tuesday 24th. My main nurse was Jasmine. I realise that I thought her name was Emily! I'll have to go back and update those posts where I have put her down as Emily. I got weighed, 141.8kg. I had lost 5kgs in two weeks. I knew I had lost some weight as my favourite pair of shorts are starting to fall down but that's pretty drastic! Temperature 36.1c. Blood Pressure 113/72. Oxygen 96%. Jasmine would've liked 98% but not today. It is humid and I always feel like I am an asthmatic and can't get enough air into my lungs. Let's see if my theory is correct next time. I felt about 95% myself health wise which was good to know after the first week after chemo I of feeling mostly crappy.

Jasmine said my "bloods were excellent" which was very good. Today I would be using the port for the first time. Jasmine tucked a cloth into the top of my bra over my left boob so that the port area was easier to get to and my shirt was out of the way. She started feeling around the port area and then suddenly said "Oh I'm so sorry! Can I please touch you?" I laughed and said she could. She looked a bit embarrassed behind her mask. She apologised again and said she should've asked first. She closes her eyes and starts poking and prodding around. It's still a little sore but not too bad. She says "I can find one bump, two bumps...now where is the third one?" These little bumps are in a triangle shape and tells them that the needle will go in the middle of them. "Donna" calls Jasmine. "Can you come and double check that I have found all 3?" Donna comes over and both of them push and poke and I said "I thought that it should've been put in about 5cms higher because it gets a bit lost in the boob". Both of them agree and said it's not the first time they have thought the port should be positioned higher. I wonder if there is a feedback form I could fill out.

Both Jasmine and Donna agree they have found the right bumps and that the port is slightly slopped in towards my cleavage. Jasmine says that every person's ports are different and they get to know them as the weeks go by. She gets out all the supplies she needs. 3 syringes of saline. A 1L bag of saline, the 500ml bag of Doxorubicin. Numerous other tubes and swab cloths etc. Jasmine puts on a blue plastic apron, gloves up and grabs a needle and says "Ok, I want you to breath in and I'll count to 3 and then you hold your breath." I do that and she puts the needle in. It doesn't hurt much, much much better than the cannulas. I ask her can I breath out yet and she laughs and says "Oh yes, better do that". She puts a clear sticky dressing over the needle to hold it in the port and that it won't move around.

The tubing has three areas that a needle can go in. One up near the port and two further down. One of these is where the IV bags go in and the other is for the big syringes of the bright red cyclophosphamide. She puts one of the syringes into the one up near the port and pumps it up and down a few times. She wants to flush out the line and get some blood return. She does get a good blood return after about the 5th pump and then pushes through 2 more saline syringes to give it a good flush. She attached the bag of saline and it start ticking through. I say ticking as I can hear the drip drip and it sounds like a clock. I get out some crochet, doing some more dish clothes. They are fun and fast to make.

After some time Jasmine comes back for 'the push'. That's the cyclophosphamide. Each syringe take about 15mins to slowly push in. It mingles with the saline as it goes up to the port. Before she starts she puts on a bigger and thicker yellow plastic apron, a special thicker mask and a face shield. Gloves as well. This stuff is toxic so they have to protect themselves. We chat about various things, she asks me every now and again if I'm feeling ok, no pain or tingling in the port. Nope, all fine. After the push it's time for the doxorubicin and that takes around an hour or so. The lunch cart comes through and I chose a cheese and tomato sandwich. Unfortunately it is on white bread. I think the cheese and salad was on brown bread. I'd already opened mine before I'd realised. Next time I will remember. There was also yoghurt, custard, orange and apple juice and flavoured milk. None of those appealed to me though. I continued to crochet. I noticed this time that there were two other ladies who were closer to my age instead of mainly older people like last time. Someone also noticed that the wheels on my IV trolley had little bear faces on them. The colours were also blue and yellow. I said that was appropriate for my Swedish heritage. I noticed when I went for a wee halfway through treatment that is said 'children's ward' on it. That makes sense it's brightly coloured with cute faces on it.

By 1.30pm I was done. All doses checked off to make sure nothing is forgotten this time. Taking the port needle out was just like it going in. 1, 2, 3 hold breath and then breathe. She takes off the dressing, deep red marks on my skin but they faded after about an hour. Outside the hospital there was a Turkish Gozleme food truck. Shell had brought a cheese and spinach one for dinner on Monday which was nice. I had a look at the menu but the grease smell turned me off. It wasn't rancid smell, it just didn't sit well on my tummy. Pity, they are so yummy and the sandwich I'd had wasn't quite enough.

I go home and have a cheese, and salad sandwich on soy and linseed wholemeal bread. I need to pee a lot from all the fluids they pumped into me and also I drank almost a litre of water too. The cyclophosphamide makes my wee a bright orange colour for the rest of the day. By about 3pm my head starts to ache a bit and get a little spacey and I start to feel tired. I can't rest yet though as I am waiting for Centrelink to call me between 3pm and 4pm. See next post for the Centrelink story.