The Chemo Diaries. Day 1 Part 1

My appointment for my first round of chemo was this morning at 9:30am.  (Big hugs to my sister Kate who is here taking the girls to school, picking them up, taking Clio to the park on her new skateboard, and generally creating endless distractions for the kids.  JJ arrives Friday to take over for the continuation of Aunts Trump Mommy).

I'm going to The Women's Wellness Center for my treatments, not the hospital.  The office is designed to look like a small and intimate living room, one with strategically placed suggestions to relax: a minimalist print of a woman in a white dress, a framed print of a rose, and hand soap in the bathrooms in bottles labeled "Stress Relief."  In big letters.  In case you weren't catching the subtler clues.  Beth, my onco nurse, comes to get me and she says "hi" in a way that tells me she is expecting me to be a hot mess.  "How are you?" she asks with even more sympathy.  I tell her I'm really good and I say it with pep and instantly I realize pep is not at all appropriate for what is about to happen.  Beth asks me, with even more gravitas, how my weekend was and this time I tell her that I really am ok but in a much more serious tone.

In the chemo room, there are two big blue reclining lazy boys (relaxing!) next to two IV carts with wires and buttons (not relaxing!).  I take one chair and Michael is reluctant to take the other so he sits on a nurse's stool with wheels.  Beth takes my blood pressure.  It is something like 100 over 66 and for the first time in my life my blood pressure numbers register in my brain.  Beth asks me if that is normal for me and I tell her that no, that is on the low side.  I'm so thrilled that I know this, but she looks at me hard and says "You are very relaxed." in a way that tells me she is either worried about me, puzzled by me, or both.  I tell her I am practicing meditation and I am happy to know that it is working.  I am not masking illicit drug use.  I am sincere.

She weighs me.  The drugs will always be tailored to my exact weight and height so she'll weigh me at the start of every treatment.  I have not gained or lost an ounce since the last time I saw her, though I was out to try to gain some.  She told me to start eating five times a day instead of three.  My dad and I came up with a list of healthy proteins to add to my meals and snacks.  I hadn't heard of hemp hearts, but those little guys are now all over my oatmeal in the morning.  Along with my usual heap of organic berries.  And the oatmeal is now made with hemp milk.  I'm not saying it's delicious but it's also not bad, and since I know it's super good for me eat every bite.  

Now that I am obsessed with an anti-cancer diet, I realize that there is a wide Healthy Eating spectrum on which you can fall.  Before cancer, I thought our eating habits were well above normal.  I only buy organic foods, all our grains are whole wheat though usually the pasta is made with quinoa, and processed foods are few and far between.  Lots of fruits and vegetables and NO sodas.  Clio thinks it's a treat when she is allowed to eat breakfast cereal on Saturday.  But now that I'm reading about super foods, I realize there is a whole world inside my health food store that I have yet to tap into.  Slowly but surely I am trying my superfood recipes, and buying bags of goldenberries to snack on.  Ironically, with chemo, I've been told not to worry about it and eat whatever I think I can keep down.

When Beth looked at the scale and realized I hadn't gained or lost an ounce, it registered with her that this is just who I am.  The skinny girl.  And now she knows me.

I get comfortable in the big blue recliner and Beth looks for a vein for the IV drip.  She is a great nurse - she uses a pediatric needle.  It goes in the first time and with only a tiny bit of pain but I still squeeze Michael's hand like I'm seven years old.  (Shout out to my oldest who turned seven last week and I think I'm really going to like seven and by the way, I really wish I were seven right now).  The first two bags to go up on the hooks and into my veins are saline and an anti-nausea medicine.  It takes 30 minutes or so.  I go into the bathroom to pee before the real drugs hook on and I take my IV cart with me and I navigate well all the bumps in the door frames.  I have become very good at walking around with IV carts and peeing with needles in my hands and arms.  I am hyper-aware that I should not have these new skills, but there we are.

When I'm back relaxing in the big blue recliner, Beth comes in with a larger than life syringe filled with blood-colored liquid and she asks me how I'm doing.  I tell her straight up I was doing fine until she showed up with that thing.  "This is the Adriamycin," she tells me.  "It's red and your urine will be red so don't be alarmed."  She sits down, pops a cap off my IV tube, and settles in to add the drug to my veins manually.  But first she tests the needle and there is a sound that makes me cringe and I turn away and cry out and she asks me if everything is ok and I have to confess to her that in addition to hating needles I also hate sounds that come out of needles, but I did not know that until this moment and I'm very happy to have had that anti-nausea drip.

In order to distract me, she does what every good nurse does and changes the subject.  So we get to talking about the kids and I tell her Clio turned seven and she's super tall and she's going to be taller than me in about 3 days.  Then Beth asks if she's tall and skinny like me.  I tell her she's not as scrawny as I was and that I hope that she will not have to endure the nicknames "twig," "beanpole," and "stork."  While the Adriamycin drips in, I confide in Beth that being the skinny girl is not all it's cracked up to be and now she knows me even better.

Next Beth hooks up the Cytoxan, another bag that hangs and drips, drips, drips for about 40 minutes.  Meanwhile Michael has occupied the other blue cushy recliner and pulls out his work papers and starts to work and this makes me happy.  His pages are full of teeny tiny numbers in boxes and he is reading them and making notes and I cannot fathom what he is doing but it makes me happy.  I read on in Anti-Cancer, a gift from my friend Jenny.  I pick it up and put it down but here I find great solace as I read about cancer studies and cancer fighting foods.  I wish I had read it ten years ago.

And then the machine beeps and we are done.  Beth goes through my meds with me, what to take and when.  There are six or seven orals, mostly for nausea.  There is one syringe, to be administered by Michael tomorrow night in a fatty area of my body so we choose my belly.  Michael hands me a dark chocolate Hershey's kiss.  There are many of these in bowls in every room of the office.  They are wrapped in PURPLE!!!!! tin foil.  I eat my congratulations-on-finishing-your-first-round-of-chemo chocolate while Beth gives us our post-chemo instructions.  We set up Chemo #2 for June 3rd, and we head out in search of lunch before the nausea sets in.

1pm.  One more bridge crossed.