1st chemo

Hi everyone... wow, the heat is really unbearable these days! It's never good when you wake up in liters of sweat, yuck!

Big day today, I had:
+blood test
+consultation with Dr. Ig
+removal of stitches
+chemo

Started at 10.30am, finished at 5pm. I hate days like these... But I'll have to get used to them. Apparently I will have to do a blood test and see the doc before each and every 6 chemo sessions... every 3 weeks. That means the last one is planned for somewhere in October (fingers crossed).

We talked about a lot of things today. The doctor told me my cancerous cells were hormone-receptive. That means that I will have to go through hormone therapy after chemo/surgery/chemo... probably for 5 years. Five long years of drug taking, where I won't be allowed to have babies. When he saw my face he said they could do a test after 3 years and see if the therapy can stop, but he doesn't encourage that. Yeah, well, it's not like I wanted to have a baby right now, but neither in 5 years. Hopefully somewhere in between if that's my destiny. We'll see...

When I finally took the lift to the 8th floor for my first chemo, I felt like I was going to burst out crying. Not a good feeling at all. At all. But the nurses were super nice and after a 15 minute wait I was already expected for the session. The port-a-cath (=PAC, =vascular access) is situated underneath my skin. So the nurse has to look for it relying on her touch, find the center, and stick a Huber needle (a special L-shaped needle) inside.
The first time was quite painful, but OK. I thought, that's it, phew! But then she realized she hadn't stuck it deep enough and was injecting water inside my chest, but not inside the PAC. That's when she started to "play" with it a bit. Enough said... I cried and begged her to stop. She hurt me so bad, I wanted to leave right then and then. She apologized and left the room.

Five minutes later I had the visit of another, much older nurse. And she was amazing. As soon as she found the PAC, she stuck the Huber needle inside and it clicked. I barely felt a thing, except for the previous pains, still inside.

I got a FEC (a combination of three chemotherapy drugs called 5Fluorouracil, Epirubicin and Cyclophosphamide) for the geeks amongst you. One of these is bright red and I've read somewhere that they call it the "Red Devil". I kept thinking I was being injected with cranberry juice. Then I thought, hold on, this is poison! Then back to cranberry juice.../poison!/cranberry juice... The injection went smoothly and pretty quickly. Actually, too quickly cause I had to call the nurse because of pressure in my nose, and she said it was because it dripped too fast. Now I know.

I have 2 more FECs to do, then 3 TAXOTEREs. No idea what is worse, but right now I feel fine, except for a slight headache (the heat!) I have pills to take to reduce the side effects these three coming days, mainly nausea. Best thing to do is not to expect any side effects actually.

PS: Yes, I'm allowed to swim with my PAC, cause it's inside the skin!