[Cancer]
[cancer] Chemotherapy, the first couple of hours
I’m at the infusion center with
As I began this post, there had been no big drugs. I’ve had my needle inserted in the port, blood and urine samples tested (everything was fine), seen the oncologist, and been loitering in this big chair for about forty-five minutes while the pharmacist does pharmacist things. My list of take home medications, for side effect management, is enormous. I’ve already taken a scattering of pills here that were colored like Lucky Charms, though they didn’t come in stars, moons and diamond shapes.
Since then they’ve come along and given me saline, then Avastin, and now a cocktail of magnesium and potassium to prepare me for the Oxaliplatin. (Those help defer the peripheral neuropathy which is a side effect of Oxaliplatin.)
Mostly this is boring. The terrors are internal — the infusion center is pleasant, the staff are cheerful, and my support team is largely futzing with their computers. I did receive a pleasant hand massage while the drugs were being hooked up, so I told the nurse it was just like college: being rubbed on by one gal while another one gave me drugs.
More as it develops, but things are going well. The real issue, of course, is the side effects, and those aren’t happening yet.
Posted: 11:18 am Fri January 08 2010 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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Steve Buchheit
January 8th, 2010 at 11:47 amIt’s the hat. It helps ward off the side effects. I believe that’s on the expanded warning sheet.