Chemo Day no 1

7th July 2015


Chemo Cycle No 1......Of course it had to have a dramatic start!


Settled in my chair, lovely nurse felt my hand, said it was cold, which I replied was not unusual (am very cold blooded), but I had never ever had any problems with finding my veins. Nurse applied hotpack, left to warm up. Returned gave it a go with the canula, nothing! But suddenly all the alarms started ringing, nurse drops everything rushes over to another patient, as do lots of other staff, one goes around and closes all the curtains. Hubbie and I sit there in our curtained barricade, look at each other and mouthe "Shit!" "Oh my God" "Good start"! Lovely nurse sticks her head through curtain and says "You OK?" we nod. After 10 mins, curtains open all returns to normal. Other patient had a bad reaction, Hubbie had seen him go, but the staff got him back on track. We were a little frazzled but thought at least we know what happens if anything goes wrong!


Nurse looks at veins again, decides she is going to pass up to the Sister. I so did not want to have a port put in. While waiting for her, there is a bed in the corner with curtains drawn and docs and family coming and going, two nurses whisper to each other "Serious?" "Yes, come outside". Again a little disconcerting, but we learn the patient is an emergency brought in.

So back to my veins, hotpack has been re-hotted and replaced and I got Lee with his mega warm hands to hold mine. Super Sister gives it another go in a different place, nothing! She decides to try one more time, different place again, tourniquet tightened. Success, hurrah!! She fires up the anti-sickness bag first, then hands over to another nurse to do the next bit. Bag empty, so next nurse appears, removes bag, has shaky hands and drops things, hangs up next bag, looks at it and says "how do I get the air bubbles out of here?" Oh my good God!! Lee says something on a different subject, I shoot him a look which I hope says "can you see what's going on here??!!". We both stare at the bubbles and I stare at another nurse at the chair next to me, she comes over, tells a different nurse to get a syringe of saline, explains to new nurse to pinch the tube leading to my hand and shoot the saline back up into the bag to remove the bubbles. Hubbie and I watch without breathing or speaking as the bubbles move back up. Our feeling of safety is resumed. New nurse sits down, introduces herself and says "I'm from the agency, all the equipment here is different". She was lovely, but for a newbee like me, that was very scary!!! She pushed a syringe of lovely chemicals into me along with the saline bag and then she left and went across to another patient.


Super Sister returned to do the other 3 or 4 (lost count) syringes, thank God, thank God! The rest of it went fine. We were given nice cups of tea and really well looked after with plenty of giggles after the initial dramas! I reacted instantly by going straight into hangover mode, straight home to bed and slept! Treatment no 1 over. Move on to Cycle 2 in three weeks