CHEMO ROUND #1

Well, Today was mom's first day of Chemotherapy. She is receiving treatment at the Cancer Center here in Kennewick where she will have 6 rounds. Each round starts with the first day at the center getting IV therapy. Then for the following days she will take oral chemo, up to the end of her cycle. I don't quite understand the numbers here but the important part is that she is only doing IV therapy every 21 days. Okay confusing... sorry. Anyway, back to round one, day one. The day started off good. Moms oncologist nurse explained the procedure and the drugs and side effects and dad and I asked questions and took notes. The IV process itself took a lot longer than anticipated. Each person has a unique chemo treatment for their cancer. Each regimen takes a certain amount of time to administer. Moms is close to 6 HOURS!!!. Soooooooooo.... They give 3 drugs prior to the chemo. One is benadryl, one is a anti-nausea and the other I don't remember. They all help the chemo not be so harsh. The first chemo drug is called TAXOL. It is administered with a small amount of sodium chloride and can have reactions in a small percentage of patients... Ding ding ding. We won the reaction! 5 minutes into therapy she reacted and they took her off and gave her a counter acting drug. It is to be administered at 200 which represents the rate it goes into the body. At 200- it takes 3 hours. They moved her to 50..for 15 minutes. Each dose is monitored in 15 min increments. So we went from 50 to 100 and watched. Then to 150. After the 2nd round (of 15 min) she reacted again so back to 100. We finally got her to the rate of 200 without reactions and finished the IV bag at 3:00 p.m! Crazy day. What a trooper she is. I had to leave to work but the other two drugs which are; Carboplatin and etoposide were given and were fine. The Carboplatin is given in about an hour and the etoposide is over 90 minutes. She wasn't having any nausea during the infusion today. She did have some time in the potty which is probably due to lots of drugs and little food. I don't think ensure is what you would call a balanced diet. Anyway, her blood pressure was tolerable and dad said that after chemo she ate a lot of real food. She had ensure for breakfast and lunch and I am assuming they went out to eat. After the 8:15 am arrival she finally got home around 7pm. The next three days are suppose to be pretty harsh as far as symtoms go so say your prayers and keep your fingers crossed. She has been so sick already previous to the chemo that I am hoping she wont get any worse. She is use to being sick by now, maybe it will stay the same. I'll update more next time I get news. Thanks for reading. -Melanie-