E topiside M ethotrexate A ctinomyacin

My first chemo. I took a few pics and videos. I don't know if its interesting or kind of mauldin, but I will leave it up to you guys to decide.

Here I am with Jack, at home before hand. I changed my clothes like ten times. 

 On the way there, I checked Facebook and saw this pic, which I thought was appropriate. You know, chemo, grumpy. Bad stuff flowing through ya.

I freaken' love Grumpy Cat. Maybe I can get him to do a meme for me? Readers?


Anyways, It looks kind of like this. Before they started, they gave me a Benadryl, and like 5 antiemetics. Those are medications that stop nausea, vomiting, etc. All that good stuff.  I had this really amazing nurse. She asked me to call her Ratchet and said, "she's my idol," but was probably the sweetest woman I have ever met. Easy. Here she is holding my first dose of chemo: Etopiside, which is a veryyy slow IV push.

Or maybe this is the methotrexate. I am thinking that, because of the color. At the end of this day, I left with a pump that gave me methotrexate every 10 seconds or so for 12 hours. Jim turned it off at 5:13 AM, very important to remember and I will explain later..... A nurse came in the morning around 8:30 and flushed my port with Heparin to avoid clots. It seemed kind of pointless since I was going back to chemo at Tunnel Cancer Center at 1:30PM.

After Monday and Tuesday, I had to take what's called a "rescue" dose or medication. Its called Leucovorin and it helps with my red blood cells and stuff. This med had to be taken at exactly 5:13 AM and PM for 3 days after treatment. That was pretty stressful, because they said, if you don't take this, you could DIE. Well, OK!  It actually made me look really pretty, like I was blushing. My husband kept complimenting me... But then again, I had just sort of been slowly poisoned for the sake of curing a disease I did not even know I was suffering from until 2 weeks prior.

Here is a picture of Jack, just to lighten the mood here. 

Oh Haaaaaiiii Jack! He is holding a bunch of bras in the Aerie store. The fascination starts at a young age....

















So, after those two days I am off until the following Monday. Thats tomorrow. So, after tomorrow I will have completed my first round. I felt good on Monday, even on the way back on Tuesday. But on Tuesday, I got really really tired. But by Friday I felt good again. Almost like myself.

I saw Dr. Cowabunga* Friday. I made a joke to him that he was killing me with chemotherapy. He laughed and said yes, actually, I am. Its kind of sad, isn't it? I don't really *feel* sick (more on that later,) or look sick, although I do look 5 months pregnant. I don't think I am sick, but they are going to make me sick just to cure a disease I don't even feel.

It turns out that my hcg levels went up from about 210,000 to 333,000. They started out at diagnosis around 277,000. So the surgery (d&c,) brought them down but they resisted the first day of treatment or the week after a bit. Dr. Cowabunga says its normal. Enough boring numbers!

I'm going to rest up for tomorrow. I just wanted to let my readers know, I really appreciate you taking the time to read my story. I feel so much better not going through this alone.




*My Doc's real name is Dr. Cadungog, and i ADORE him. http://www.christianacare.org/bodymod.cfm?id=169&action=detail&ref=22409
Here is a link to his page on his hospital's website. Check him out! He's saving my life.