CHEMOTHERAPY:

My Story

    Chemotherapy is a Catch 22 type treatment. It does what it should do, but it makes you incredibly sick and it has serious side effects. I'm not a cancer sufferer, if you read the Lupus section you know that. It scares me knowing that ,even though I do not have cancer I have a chance of getting it , due to the chemotherapy. I still don't quite understand how something designed to fight cancer can give you cancer as a side effect. But it does, no one really told me that before I started treatment, if they had told me , would I have chose not to do it ? Eh, I still would have, I desperately wanted to live and they pretty much assured me nothing else would do the trick.

    Chemotherapy is given via I.V over a period of about 4 hours. At least thats how my treatments go. For 3 years I had a port-a-cath that I got my treatments through. What that is is a direct line to a major vein in the chest. Its shaped kind of like a thimble and has a tube on either side the goes into the vein. The thimble part is made of surgical stainless steel and coated in that rubbed stuff they put on the end of the vials they collect blood specimens in.

My doctor had me get one of those because at the time I started the chemo treatments I was very ill, and dehydrated much of the time and my veins were collapsing, so in went the port. What that meant for me was no more pokes in the arm, no more bruises that lasted for weeks, no more silly nurses who couldn't find the vein, or accused it of " moving ". Uh huh riiiiight. I just got a quick poke in the chest and theres no way to miss. So I'd go in get stuck in the chest and begin my 4 hours of torture.

   I can't say it was physically painful because it wasn't. But I can say it was mentally painful. It is so hard, even today, for me to get myself up on chemo morning and make myself go. Especially when I got to feeling better, it became more difficult.

When I was sick it wasn't such a big deal because I already felt like crap. But when you're feeling relatively healthy its hard to make yourself go do something , that you know is going to make you feel like hell. So, not on purpose, just as a matter of course,  I get really worked up before chemo. Upset, scared, sick you name it, and all before the treatment even starts. I have nightmares about things going wrong, and it just generally sucks. They started giving me a sort of anti- anxiety pill which helped and now just as part of the treatment they have it handy in I.V form, so about the time they actually hang the bad of the chemo ( Cyclophosphemide or Cytoxin ) they give me a dose of that and I'm off to la la land.

It helps, because about the time I start to come out of the haze it puts you in , the drugs have all been run in and its about time for me to go. Then I go home get in some jimmies and go to sleep. And there I stay, I would say the vomiting starts probably the minute I walk in the door. And it has been so bad sometimes I will throw up every 5 minutes.

I usually have a stock of chicken soup, Gatorade, and jell-o though none of it ever stays down. I sleep a lot during the recovery time, I can't begin to describe to you how bad it wears you out. Another part of it, is a funky depression.

It's weird because it goes away as soon as the sick feeling clears up and the throwing up goes away. But it's bad while I'm the sickest. It helps me when people call, even though I really don't want to talk to anyone, just knowing someone out there cares makes the depression not so bad. So my friends call,  some stop by and that helps a lot. It all goes back to that support group thing.

I have one very special to me person who actually goes to chemo with me, then he calls and visits, sometimes he brings me stuff, but he takes good care of me and makes sure I know I'm not completely alone.

I know I tell him how much I appreciate him, but I don't think someone like that , could ever know how much those little things mean to someone going through this kind of stuff. If you have the opportunity, and I call it an opportunity,  because even though I'm on the inside of the situation , I've had contact with and met people going through chemotherapy and people dealing with this are different and the ones I have met I've found to be special people with an awesome outlook on life though they are living through hell, so yes its an opportunity to meet someone like that.

Anyways what was I saying? Oh yeah if someone going through chemo ever walks into your life, just take the time to be there. It's the little things that make a difference, the hugs, the smiles, the stupid jokes that make you laugh even though it hurts your stomach, the message on the answering machine that says " Hey I'm just callin to see how you're doin." Its those things that make a difference. And to all the people who have done this for me, I know I've said it before and I can't say it enough but thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your little calls, and silly jokes made a world of difference to me and helped me more than you could possibly know. And to the special person I mentioned earlier,
I don't think I would've made it through these last treatments without you.

    Well that's about all I have to say about chemotherapy. There's a lot of medical stuff and information, I'll put some links below, but I think the best way to learn about something like this,  is to listen to peoples experiences. So that's what I've shared with you. Thanks.
 

http://content.health.msn.com/content/articl

http://www.managecinv.com/?src=overture

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/eto/content/

Web Hosting · Blog · Guestbooks · Message Forums · Mailing Lists
Allwebco Web Templates · Build your own toolbar · Site Building Articles · Audio, Fonts, Clipart
powered by bravenet.com