Chemotherapy Treatment #6 - Better Than #5!

It's kind of weird to say that chemotherapy treatment was good today, so you will have to give me a moment to explain.  It's not that I love having toxins filling my body, but the last treatment was so heinous that I did not want to go back!  Today was a very long day, but ultimately a good one.  This was my day today:

I arrived at the oncologist's office around 8:15 for an 8:30 appointment and went immediately to have some blood drawn to check my numbers (all good!).  Then I went to have my vitals taken by one of the nurses - blood pressure a little high (because I was feeling stressed when I got there), but pulse and temperature were normal and I've lost 10 pounds to boot. Next up: the meeting with the oncologist. After a brief exam, we spoke some regarding how many more treatments that I'll be having and I didn't get a solid answer. (The initial timeline called for 6-8.)  He wants to have a consult with another oncologist and then let me know. What do I want?  In 2 weeks, I would like another CT scan to see if the tumors have shrunk or are gone. Then, depending on the results of the scan, we should decide on further treatment - yay or nay.

After that, I moved onto the Cancer Care center, where I took my regular spot in the corner by the window. Today, the nurse who installed my IV got it done in one (pretty painful) shot. Woot!  That's a first! (I have really tiny veins.) Next came the pre-meds. Due to the amount of nausea that I had nearly immediately last time, the nurses made a recommendation to the doctor to give me a stronger anti-nausea med than the one I had been taking. The new medication (Emend), theoretically, should control my nausea for the next 5 days. Only time will tell its efficacy. The bad thing about this new drug - it adds an additional 30 minutes to my treatment time. Then it was time for the toxins. Bring on the Taxol and the Carboplatin. Yeah, now that's the good stuff. 

The nurses would routinely check my blood pressure, which were all normal after my initially slightly high BP rate. In fact, at one point it dropped to 90/64, which I got a little nervous about but the next reading was higher and eventually was back to normal. The nurse mentioned that it was the Benadryl they gave me which caused that severe drop.

The bulk of my day was spent either reading a book, chatting with my amazing nurses (who give great advice), or napping.  All in all, another uneventful day in the infusion chair. Today was almost a hour longer than usual, which makes for a very, very, very long day. Even so, I'm thinking I might celebrate a good chemo day by going out for dinner before the side effects hit me! What do you think: Pizza? Chinese?  Indian?  Burger??  Mexican??? Hmmm.....  Decisions, decisions, decisions......

Update at 7:36 pm:  Nausea has hit - around 6pm and is steadily worsening. Strike One for Emend.  But a slice of pizza and a salad for dinner hit the spot!