George and I arrived at the Chemotherapy Department of Mercy at 8:30 AM on Thursday 11/17. Because it was to be a NINE HOUR day, I packed my laptop and iPad (loaded with movies) since I thought I would be able to do a little work AND watch a few movies! Unfortunately, neither of them were touched the entire day. George had to leave at 11:00, but my dear Tara was going to arrive at 2:00, so I wasn't too lonely awaiting her visit.
Preparing for chemotherapy is a daunting task and I'm not sure that anyone can prepare themselves for it no matter how much web surfing you try to do and how many sessions with the doctor you have. Thankfully, you don't have any dietary restrictions the night before, so you can fortify yourself with breakfast that morning AND there's a Starbucks on the first floor of the Institute for Cancer Care :)
You are led to a little cubicle and today, I'm in #16. It has a window but the size is approximately 6 ft. by 9 ft. and most of that is taken up by a recligning chair, a bedside table, and a visitor's chair. The wall is made of stainless steel and contains all sorts of compartments to be used by the staff during your care - not to mention the floor to ceiling bank of electrical outlets to service the chemotherapy infusers and other equipment that may be needed.
Because I haven't had the port inserted yet, my nurse for the day, Susan, began by 'trying' to insert a temporary one in my arm - to no avail. This obviously happens a lot, so they have a back-up system and the chief-of-arm-ports arrives to save the day.
And so it begins...the first items to be infused are: Tylenol (allergies), Benadryl (allergies), Dexamethazone (allergies), and an assortment of anti-nausea meds (Zantac, Emend, Aloxi). The actual chemo (Rituxin) finally begins a couple of hours later and starts off very slow. Each half hour, the nurse increases it.
Fortunately, because of the Benadryl and other sleep-inducing goodies, I feel asleep. Unfortunately, when I woke up, my ears were itching. Since I didn't think much of it, I just kinda waited for the nurse to cruise by. Less than 5 minutes later, she came in to check and noticed the redness around my ears. Less than 3 minutes later, there were 20 people in the cubicle led by Dr. Ledakis - turning off the infuser and flushing my veins with liquids to alleviate the allergic reaction. All sorts of vital signs were taken, all sorts of steroids were infused, but not before I began to have shortness of breath. It didn't last long -- actually minutes -- but enough to determine that this drug (Rituxin) is going to be a problem!
After everything calmed down, they restarted the Rituxin at the slowest drip possible. It seemed to be going well. Tara arrived before 2:00 and we had a grand time chatting away. I'm not sure what time it was, but we had already begun talking about ordering in dinner because I wasn't going to be able to get through the Rituxin until 7:45 PM!!!!! Tara looked up and said, "Your eyes are so red!" Before I could blink, she ran for the nurse - and wouldn't you know it - my face began to swell. OK - so you're wondering how in the world do 20 people get into a 6' x 9' cubicle which already houses a huge chair, a patient and a friend? Well, I don't know how, but they did it. With Dr. Ledakis listening to my heart and checking my pulse and everyone else grabbing my arm to flush fluids in (which REALLY HURT, by the way -- and I remember feeling Tara's nice warm hand on mine as she tried to soothe away the pain), they successfully managed to do away with allergic reaction #2. Needless to say, Rituxin was discontinued for the day. I sat for another hour to insure that everything was okay for me to leave.
Dr. Ledakis then said that the only way I can have the Rituxin (and I MUST have it) was as an in-patient so that I could be monitored completely. He said he would begin to schedule that on Monday, so a 3rd day was added to this month's chemo.
This is a day of thanks... Thank you, my dear Tara - I will never forget our experiences today.
A new lesson: We left the hospital at 6:25 - just in the nick of time. The valet parking closes at 6:30, so five more minutes and we wouldn't have been able to get Tara's car!
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