The first chemo treatment

All in all the first day of chemo went about as well as an intravenous administration of a chemical stew possibly could. First they drew three vials of blood. Then the test results are reviewed by Jeannie’s oncologist, who gives thumbs up or thumbs down on proceeding plus makes any adjustments in the final prescription for the morning. If I haven’t said it before I’ll say it now I’m convinced Jeannie’s oncologist was a cheerleader earlier in life. Not necessarily a bad thing as you wouldn’t want a dour pessimist in your corner for this fight. Plus I was impressed by her remembering some non medical details from our first visit with her. I’m also impressed by how many staff members are upbeat considering they deal with cancer patients each day. On top of that the majority of patients are of good cheer. Our patient was on the quiet side, worrying about something foul that she’s never before experienced. Who can blame her?

So off to the infusion room where Beth took immediate charge of Jeannie’s case and did everything possible to reassure her and get her to feel at ease. She let me hang around until it was about time to administer the first of the two “medications”. She said Jeannie would be done in about an hour and twenty minutes. Make a note of that because I ran it through my medical translator which says add at least 15 minutes to each hour of a medical duration estimate. The first medication is administered slowly, 1 cc at a time and then drawn back to make sure it hasn’t actually burned the port. So I take off on a round of work related errands that I know will take over an hour and a half. As I’m half way across town and half way toward picking her up the phone rings and it’s Jeannie’s number. How are you I say. “Out front where are you”. Oops. What a man what a guy. Later I notice two texts from her that I missed. If Beth ran over her time estimate it might have been by five minutes. This won’t change my opinion of most medical time estimates. But I will pay more attention to Beth’s.

During the treatment Jeannie only experienced a runny nose and tingling scalp. At 1:30 she was bouncy and running off to work, far too much like the cheerleader oncologist and Beth the nurse. At just past four she was still sounding great. On my way home she called and said if I wanted to pick myself up something to eat I could pick what I wanted because she was just going to try some soup. She told me something interesting about chemo induced nausea earlier today. It has little to do with the stomach. It’s the brain reacting to the belief that the body’s been poisoned. She’s tolerated her broth well and has dozed off and on all evening. This stuff affects everyone differently. I guess we’ll find out what’s next when we get there and roll with the punches.