I woke up Thursday morning ready for chemo number two, hoping it would go better than the first. I got all showered and ready and put on the new shirt my sisters got me for second treatment. Mom and I packed into the car and I tried to stay relaxed as I thought of doing this all over again. We walked up to the clinic, checked in, and waited to get started. It wasn't as scary as the first time since I knew a little bit about what to expect. My nurse Shane directed me to the back again to get my IV started along with blood draws. This part is all pretend. I smile and make conversation, but I hate even the simple act of getting my port accessed to do blood draws and flush it out. It's uncomfortable and makes me feel ill, especially now that I know what it will do to me.
After the poke mom and I were directed to a room to wait for the doc. A couple different nurses and the doc's P.A. came to talk to me about how first treatment went. Talking to them lifted my spirits a bit because they all acted like last time wasn't how it is supposed to be. I wasn't supposed to be laying on a couch throwing up for three days. It was supposed to be tolerable...ha, tolerable. I guess that depends on their definition of tolerable, I'm kind of a baby. Even if not though, it made me happy thinking it shouldn't be as miserable. We saw Aryn again before we went down to infusion, it's nice to see a familiar face. It's more comforting and I feel like she knows me better, she was there the first day. I told her how things were going and then once again, we headed down to infusion.
A nurse named Mary had me this time. She sat me down and talked to us lots about the new medicines I'd be taking to stop most of the intense nausea. She wrote it all down making it easy for mom and me to understand. I liked her. Next we waited for my lab results. Things went crappy for awhile when we got the results. Instead of having a regular WBC count of 2800 like the week before, I was down to 300, with anything below 1000 apparently being a concern. Mary talked to us about the labs then said we were waiting on the doctor's order to see if I was going to be treated that day.
I had such mixed emotions. I felt happy of course because I hate chemo, but most of all I was upset. Upset to think that this could go longer and that my immune system was so low. I had looked ahead in the calendars and chemo lined up perfectly with holidays...if I didn't miss a time. I was also upset to not have one more over with. Chemotherapy takes just as much emotional strength as physical. I was prepared, ready to get another one out of the way, then all the sudden I was waiting to see what the doctor would say. Mary came back a few minutes later and told us we were good to go. She said they've seen that even with a low white blood count, patients have done just fine. We were back on track.
A little after treatment began, Taylor Lay came to visit. I feel so lucky and grateful to have such amazing family and friends who are willing to come be with me during something I'm sure is incredibly boring for them. We sat and chatted, took some pics, and even went on a little field trip to the bathroom with my big stand holding the IV and some machine. It was basically a party. I walked out of Huntsman feeling pretty good, but knowing what was ahead of me the next couple of days.
This treatment was sooo much better than the first....physically. Thursday night all I could think of was how much better I felt than the last time. But of course, when something good happens there has to be a little bad to even it out i suppose. I woke up the next morning and my next little trial in all this, and hopefully the last, started. I walked into the bathroom, brushed my hair, and immediately noticed the amount of hair that stayed in the brush. I ran upstairs and after a little cry sesh to mom, calmed down a bit and thought I had to get rid of my hair the next day. Turns out hair is much harder to give up than that...I decided to keep it around and Katie helped out, washing it and such. It's a bit difficult to be pulling it out myself and brought a few tears the first couple of days. After that it started to get easier for a while. Then the weirdest thing happened, instead of getting upset at hairs falling all over, it started to get annoying. I was so grateful for that! I started having a desire to cut it because it was falling out everywhere. I knew I still didn't want that yet though, so for a week I kept my hair up and did just fine. The second Monday after second treatment Katie cut it for me. Just to my shoulders. I actually liked it a lot! I went to work with it down the next day and was excited to have one last day looking cute. Two days later...it was time for chemo three.
Cute shirt. Where'd you get it?
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