Chemotherapy

Following my surgery on Wednesday, I was told I would be starting the full treatment (Chemotherapy and other drugs) on the Thursday morning.

I was a little worried about starting it all back to back with my lower abdomen still being pretty sore, but time is of the essence with ALL, due to it’s acute nature.

On Thursday morning we were then told that the Chemotherapy would be postponed until Friday, as if started on the Thursday, one of the scheduled procedures would fall on a Sunday and the required staff would not be around to perform this. I was pretty happy with this as it meant I had another day to recover from Wednesday, and meant my new cocktails would fall on Fridays!! Got big Friday night plans for the next month… ?

Friday morning arrived and we waited for the drugs to be administered. I was feeling a little apprehensive about how I would feel after having them, would I have a bad reaction, would worrying about having a reaction cause a reaction… My consultant was great and talked me through the first two chemotherapy drugs (Vincristine and Daunorubicin) I would be having, and he was confident that I wouldn’t feel too rough after the first ones, so I felt OK about it all.

We waited all day for the bags to arrive, which was making me a little anxious, but I managed to be stay calm and Harriet was here to keep me company. They had given me anti-nausea drugs around 11 am as they wanted to start at 12:30 pm, but it wasn’t until 3:30 pm that they informed me they wanted to do a heart scan (echo) before starting the treatment. So around 4 pm I was wheeled down to Cardiology for an echo. Quite interesting to see and hear your heart.

Back up to the ward and at around 6 pm I finally had the first bag. It was administered straight through my central line into my chest via a combined glucose drip, and only took 10 mins. Happy to report I had no immediate side effects. The second drug was pushed manually after my dinner at about 7:30 pm and took around 15 mins, this one was bright red and makes your pee pink!

I felt fine for about an hour, and then started to feel nauseous and had a headache. On top of this my shoulder and chest were in pain from the surgery gas still floating about, so wasn’t the most comfortable. But the nurses gave me some paracetamol and anti-nausea pills, and it all calmed down and I finally got off to sleep

All in all, the first day of Chemotherapy was fine and I just felt a bit tired the next day. On day 14 of my Induction phase, I will be having my first dose of Methotrexate. They do this via intrathecal Chemotherapy, which is a lumbar puncture. This involves inserting a hollow needle between two of my spinal bones. They do this to protect my spinal cord and brain. I’ll keep you posted on that one…

“And sure enough waiting will end… If you can just wait long enough”

For full information on the protocol I am on click here.