I’ve posted on social media about my cancer diagnosis but I wanted to document the whole shebang, the good, the bad, the tears, and laughter. I knew nothing about chemo, not much about cancer before all this and if I can give anyone some tid bits of information for anyone else, just as some amazing people have helped me, I want to pass it on with my experience.

Yesterday, I started chemo. David and got there at 9am, they drew my blood and we met with the oncologist. He always sits down and scrolls on his computer to reread my labs, etc. The first thing he told us was that he has another patient who has my same cancer, started in the colon and went to the peritoneum. He sent that patient to UT Southwest for a specialized surgery where they (I think this is how he described it to us before) essentially scrape the inside of the stomach and apply chemo directlly to it. He said the surgery was successful and if my PET scan on the 3rd of September shows no cancer outside the area and if I respond to chemo well, he will send me for the same surgery. We started the day out so hopeful after that meeting.

He went over all my labs and I am an intermediate metabolizer of medications. The levels are good, intermediate, and poor. Which just means the meds stay in my body longer so he lowered the dose of one, I don’t remember which one, to see how well I do with it and the side effects. It’s not a bad thing, just stays in my system longer so I don’t need a higher dose. Also he said he had to wait on another medication until I am 6 weeks out of my major surgery. Then he sent us out to wait for a chair.

The nurses at my oncologist office are all amazing. The whole staff is actually. We got our chair and the nurse came out with a bag full of fluids and some syringes. Last Friday we had our chemo class where they go over all the medications, side effects, what to look out for, etc, so I knew all the meds I was getting, As the nurse was holding them repeating what they were, it hit me and I couldn’t stop from crying. I’m a sensitive person, cry easily, and as crazy as it sounds, I feel deeply. So this hit me. Its happening.

Monday was rough for me, I knew I was starting chemo the next day and it was harder to accept than the 3 hour major abdominal surgery I went through. For the surgery, they were just taking something out of my body. Chemo they are killing any cancer left in my body. It played a trick on my mind and kept me in a funk and tears during my morning walk. The solution to get out of that funk, was my kids. I got home after my walk and they snap me right out of it! Reminded me why I am doing all this, to be there for them.

Back to chemo yesterday. The nurse was compassionate and told me to let it happen, I wasn’t the first nor the last to cry there. It passed and we got to business. She told me each time what med she was giving me and what it was for, but I forgot to bring my paper with all the information so I could remember what is what. They don’t give all the meds at the same time, they do one at a time and they all have their own time frame of how slow they are dispersed. From 15 minutes to 2 hours at a time. We were there for 5 hours. That will be the typical amount of time each time but could be a bit shorter but not by much. After the last bag they gave me a “push” which is a large syringe full of chemo that they administer over 3-5 minutes and then she hooked me up to a lemon ball full of chemo, in an amazing fanny pack I might add, that I wear attached to my port for 48 hours. I go back Thursday to get it taken out.

I didn’t have any side effects so to speak there, but about four minutes into the car ride home I started getting extremely nauseous. Like as nauseous as I was when I was pregnant with the twins and all I could eat was French fries. They had already sent over a prescription for Zofran which Cayden went to pick up for me. It helps take the edge of but the nausea is still there. I couldn’t stomach much dinner, so soup and bread it was. I’m trying to get as much fluids in as I can to help with side effects. It’s a chore all on its own.

I have so much more to add about yesterday but I have to get my day started. I will try and add more about how we got to this point to catch up too.