First infusion thoughts

That's one of 'em.

Wednesday 04 Dec was the first infusion for treatment of whatever residual cancer cells might be bounding around in my bloodstream affixing themselves to far-flung places in by body that only they can find to use to hide from my immune system/natural defenses.

I'm not a fan of lurking cancer, so agreed with the treatment plan to flood my system with poison to eradicate the issues.  Many many poisons.  The treatments are infusions of docetaxel and cyclophosphamide once every 21 days +/- a little Ativan if you're so inclined and a bit of anti-nausea meds to get you over the first few days of what could be very unpleasant indeed.

In prep, I was supposed to have applied some EMLA cream, which is used to numb the skin over the port (it's lidocaine and prilocaine), but I 'did it wrong' and instead of just gobbing on a whole raft of the shit on the site I kind of rubbed it in and then covered with an occlusive dressing.

WRONG, and proved so when it simply didn't do much to ease the sting of the needle going into the port.

No matter - just a little pinch, but not one I was expecting so not the best surprise ever.

Then the blood draw, then the saline, then the pre-meds, then a 50-minute drip of the docetaxel, then a 15-minute flush, then 50 minutes of cyclophosphamide, then a flush and some heparin added, and I was out the door.  About a 4-hour process, all told.  None of which was bad.

I decided to NOT get a filgrastim (Neulasta) 'pod' for home use, because it truly sounds like a pain to manage, so went in the next day for a shot of that to keep the neutrophil counts up, after taking a claritin to ward off the bone pain that can sometimes come as an after-effect of the GCSF being administered (that's granulocyte colony stimulating factor to you).

The shot was yesterday.

I stayed up way too late last night getting work done, then got up too early this morning to start meetings at 6:30 a.m.

Made it to about 2:30 p.m. before the overwhelming urge to take a nap overcame me, and crawled into the recliner, where 2 hours of glorious rest befell me almost immediately.

Pretty sure it was work that did me in, but who knows?  I might be experiencing a little med fatigue, or just flat-out mental fatigue with what this week's been all about.

All in all though, not a terrible experience.  No bad effects, I didn't have to ring the bell, and walked out of the unit feeling pretty good.

I still don't recommend it.

Tiff out.