Typical Day of Chemo

I wrote this in March of 2006 as a reminder of what I was going through at that time. 3/6/06 3:19 PM

Here is a short description of a typical day of chemo.

My chemo day is a day of sitting around a lot. The first thing that happens after I wake up is eating. I usually just do a normal cereal breakfast. After the cereal I get my pre-chemo meds ready to take. I take 9 pills of 4 different drugs. They are pretty easy to take because most of them are under the size of an aspirin. The drugs are:

10MG DEXAMETHASONE  ? 300MG CIMETIDINE 50MG DIPHENHYDRAMINE 10MG PRILOSEC [note: This is a heartburn drug I’ve been on for awhile]

I then take a shower and get ready to go out into the world. The next thing I do is prepare my cancer bag. This is the bag that keeps me from getting to bored. I usually pack my Lance Armstrong book, my laptop, my Sony PSP, and any other notes paperwork that I will need. Usually the thing that takes the longest is loading the PSP and Laptop with things to do. Usually I load a TV episode on the PSP and worker bee type stuff on the Laptop. I then take Dakota for a walk, because by then he is really ready to go outside. After that Heather takes pictures of my progression through the chemo process.

We are usually ready to go after that. We jump in the car and ride over to the hospital. I usually do the chemo treatment alone, although it was nice last week to have my Mom there (Thanks Mom!). The first thing you have to do in Kaiser is check in at the front desk. This is just a minimal procedure that lets everyone know I am there. This is also where they collect the money for the treatment. I would say that $15 for chemo is pretty good. They bill it as a nurse visit.

I then go upstairs to the 12th floor. This is where the chemo ward is. They have another set of receptionists there that need a piece of paper that the receptionist downstairs gives me. This is where my skills of being a messenger come in handy. I could work for the post office. Then I usually have to wait about 5 minutes for a nurse to get me and then get started.

Once the nurse comes and gets me we go and get the usual vital signs measured. I usually weigh between 191 and 196 pounds. I must have put on some weight since I got married! That is what happens when you have a great wife who is also a great cook. I am sure that watching the food channel daily doesn’t have any thing to do with it. Then we find a chair that I will be in for the rest of the day.

The chair is the most important thing during chemo. I like the one chair that they have that overlooks the city and the mountains. It is the only one that they have. So getting it is important. The other chairs just look at the nurses. As much fun as that would be I would rather look at the Rocky Mountains! That is why I live in Colorado anyway.

The next step is to talk to the nurse about my week and the side affects of the drugs. The thing is only I can tell them what is happening, because I am the only one going through this. Here is a list of side affects that I have felt.

  1. Acne rash, if you look at the pictures below you can see the extent of this.
    1. Basically picture every pour on your upper body (from the chest and back up) producing a little annoying pimple. Then picture having so many that you could never pop them all. Then picture opening your mouth and having 7-10 on each side of your face popping. Not Fun!
    2. They gave me two different types of ointment to remedy this. Although they do not get ride of pimples as Clearasil would, they do sooth the skin.
  2. IBS, Irritable bowl syndrome. This basically means either being constipates or having the runs all week along with the pain in the abdomen. Not as bad as the acne!
  3. Severe Fatigue. In the afternoon I will get extremely tired and not want to do anything but sleep. I like sleeping so this one isn’t really an issue.
  4. Mouth sores. I have to watch the acidic level in my mouth now. If I let it get to high my mouth will break out in sores. To remedy this I use what they call Rocky Mountain Mouth wash and a baking soda solution. I have no idea what is in the mouthwash, but it works and tastes good like children’s cough syrup.
  5. Hiccups. For the first two days after the chemo I get uncontrollable hiccups. There is no real cure for this, but trying to rest the diaphragm and drink water.

The next thing that happens is the needle comes out and I get an IV placed in me. I really don’t mind the needles as long as the nurse is experienced. Most of the time it just goes in quick and painlessly. Although I have big veins I think the nurses like playing game to see which random vein they can get. Most of the time they do a great job.

The nurse then starts a saline drip, which flushes the lines and gets me ready. She will then start the pre-chemo drugs. These consist of anti-nausea type drugs. They are

10MG DEXAMETHASONE 50ML+SALINE DRIP 300MG CIMETIDINE+SALINE 52ML 50MG DIPHENHYDRAMINE+SALINE 1ML+SALINE DRIP

This process usually takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes. After that I actually start the chemo drugs. These are the same type of thing except they actually go through the pump machine to get into me instead of a drip. These drugs are:

276MG CARBOPLATIN+SALINE 127.6ML 500MG ERBITUX 250ML 180MG PACLITAXEL+SALINE 280ML

This process takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes. I also have to wait 1 hour after the Erbitux for any reactions to occur. Usually nothing happens. During the process of getting the drugs pumped in I either read, watch a TV episode, or play on my Laptop.

Once everything is done I pack up and get a ride home. Over all the day is kind of relaxing to be honest. The main thing I do is attempt to not to give in to boredom. It is kind of weird being stuck on the 12th floor of a building all day long. I feel in the morning that this is kind of like going to work and by afternoon I am really anxious to get out of there. Depending on the day, I will either sleep or just hang out after I get home. I then wait for my body to heal from the poison that is chemo.

The cool thing is that it is working and the tumor is shrinking and I can really feel the effects of this. My eye is not being pushed out and my face doesn’t have that bone pressure pain I was feeling, also the headaches are gone. So overall the experience is worth the trouble of short-term side affects.

One last thing:

Total ML of Saline and Drugs is about 1L or 1 Nalgene Bottle

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