It has been 5 days since my wife's first chemotherapy and so far, so (mostly) good. The results of her final test showed she has an intermediate chance of recurrence so, once that was determined, her oncologist felt it was time for chemo.
I went with her the first day and it was, all things considered, uneventful. We parked the car, signed in, got our parking ticket validated (valet parking, $4 all day) and went right in. Before long, she had her IV dripping into her chest and, with a little help from IT, got the WiFi working on my laptop (so I could work and save my time off) and her tablet. We saw the oncologist, nurse and resident for a quick chat, and then, before we knew it, a nurse was pumping the red devil into her. At that point she had me take a picture of the "poison" going through the tube so she could show it to the friend who loaned her her fight like a girl breast cancer shirt (which I thought was a karate shirt before this).They even gave her lunch (I had to head out to the cafeteria, next time I will check out the sushi place around the corner). Aside from feeling a little lethargic and dozing off while we waited in the radiology department after as we waited for the nurse to check her PICC port, she felt fine. She even went to work the next morning, though she had to return to the cancer institute in the afternoon to have her blood counts checked (pre-planned appointment).
What has been more amazing is that she has not had, as of yet, some of the followup symptoms she was warned about. While she hasn't felt 100%, and has complained of chemo brain fog and a yeast infection she hasn't had the nausea or fatigue that we were warned about. A friend confirmed that there will be weeks where she feels 100% after treatment and will go to the mall that is halfway between our house and the hospital to go shopping and other weeks where she will stop at the mall on the way home so she can take a rest. It helps that she has been drinking all the recommended water, eating right and still managing to go to the gym -- though taking it a little easy.
I, on the other hand, have not been eating and drinking right. I still find bouts of anxiety popping up for no reason, especially later in the evening when my work is done and the children have gone to bed. Unfortunately I have always been one to go to food when stressed and have been making some unwise late night snack choices. While I have corrected that over the last week, I still seem to be enjoying/needing a nightcap too often now. I go to my own doctor this week for my annual physical and will see if he can prescribe me something to help me take the edge off.
I could go on about all the drugs she has to take now to function, but I will leave that to the medical sites. There is so much going on when I look at her medicines in the tray on our kitchen counter that I am bound to get them wrong. Instead she counts down the days left until the mouth sores appear, the digestive problems start, and her hair starts to fall out and does whatever she can while she can. Once she has to really start taking it easy, the new countdown to when she can resume all normal activities will begin.
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