Cycle 1, Day 1

We are finally home after almost 8 hours at the hospital.  They were busy at first and with this being her first treatment, things went slower than normal.  I will try to cover the day in order to make sense and make it easier for me to remember.

We arrived at the hospital and the Oncology department at about 9am. They first connected to her Port and this was fun as it initially hurt her a lot.  It is still sore from the original surgery and since this was the first time it was used, it hurt her more than expected.  This only lasted a little while so there was no real problem and should be much better next time.

Once connected, they drew some blood and sent it to the lab for testing.  This will always be done at the beginning to make sure everything is OK and within acceptable parameters.  If something is out of acceptable levels, then there will be no treatment that day and something may be done to correct the issue. They do not want to give her these powerful drugs if her body is not up to handling it. The rest of the day went fairly well although slowly because of just the way it all has to flow and they were pretty busy until about noon.

The process was first her pretreatment meds (for nausea and a steroid), then she took her first dose of the pills she will be taking twice a day for 21 days, then the first Chemo infusion which was pushed over about 15 minutes. After flushing the IV lines (happened between every step) she was given the second Chemo infusion which lasted 2 hours.  She ate a sandwich at this time and I went out for lunch as well as running a couple errands.  Last she was given the Ferrous (Iron) infusion which lasted another 90 minutes.

During most of this she was feeling pretty normal except for a little nausea and some very minor tingling in her fingers and lower lip.  The tingling was triggered when she drank some cold water and touched the cool IV pole when she went to the bathroom.  This was all very minor at the time and is one of the expected side effects of one of the drugs. She was also a little sleepy from the drugs, but that was also expected.

We left the hospital about 4:30 and unfortunately, while still in the parking lot, she started feeling more nausea.  We sat for a little while until she felt better and then headed home.  We made it home OK although she was still feeling nauseaus and the tingling was getting worse. The tingling comes and goes and seems like any motion or touching cold triggers it. This will make things interesting as long as that lasts. Additionally her ulcer (or tumor) started hurting some but that may be a good thing since that is what the drugs are suppose to be attacking.

Unfortunately, once home she started feeling much worse. She almost threw up and was very weak for a several minutes (almost passed out).  I think this was partly her body reacting to the shock from all of the bad stuff put in her combined with the trip home and moving around changing clothes. She is now in bed relaxing and feeling a little better although far from good. Since moving her hands triggers the tingling, I amfeeding her some hamburger which for some reason sounder good to her.  Her hands and feet are very sensitive to motion and touch. We hope that this will subside some over the next couple days, but we will see. If not, that will be an adjustment at her next treatment.

We go back Monday for another Ferrous infusion only (about 2 hours) and then we will see the doctor for him to see how she is doing on either Wednesday or Thursday.

Sorry if this got a little long and wordy, but I wanted to let everyone know as much as I could.  I will try to put out at least a little update every day just to say how she is doing and what has changed. At this point, please do not call since she will hopefully be sleeping a lot.  Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Wayne