Information overload is real, yo. We went over everything. Well, almost everything. I brought up my medications list during our long instructional meeting with an RN about chemo, but we forgot to loop around to it, to find out what I need to stop taking. I'll probably get a phone call tomorrow to cover it and the questions I had posed that she didn't have an answer for.
I had the number three stuck in my head, and it had turned into "three rounds of chemo" by the time I started telling people about it. Today I had it all written down for me, and I see where I got that. It's actually four rounds, three weeks apart. I was close. I start Monday, for a set of infusions that last around three hours (well, including the initial labs and flushing the port, maybe needing to blast out any clog that my hyperactive immune system might have thrown at it in the last couple weeks). Then I go home with a Neulasta patch on my arm, which will go off automatically Tuesday afternoon, like an Alien facehugger, injecting me with a white blood cell booster over 45 minutes. They say people usually do okay with the infusions and the Neulasta while it's going in. The real fun starts somewhere in the first week after that. I have a huge list of side effects that are common, and I expect to receive a colorful bouquet of some of them. There may be a few I don't encounter, and I'll be fine with that. I'll really have to watch for fevers and scratches or tears in my skin. I have to be super careful about infections. This is not going to be easy when I live with a pack of cats and dogs and lizards and fish and...
I had promised a few people that I'd give the exact drug combination I'm going to be on, and generally I don't like to give that out in the blog, but I'll break that rule this one time. They start me on Docetaxel (Taxotere) for about an hour. Then I swap over to Cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan) for another 30-60 minutes. Depending on whether I react poorly, I could get a smidge of Diphenhydramine, and I think, but can't tell from my list, that if they need to break up a clump that clogs the port, it might be Palonosetron for that. (I would google it before I write, but I spent the evening panic-cleaning the house in anticipation of an old friend coming who needs to crash here for a few hours, since his flight was late and his other plan fell through. The Mr went to go pick him up from the airport just now. I have zero spoons left after that. I'll research tomorrow.)
It's starting to sink in how big a deal this is. I am having a few more moments of being overwhelmed each day, increasing in an exponential curve. It's far too late to stop it now, but I keep pausing to think, holy crap, what am I doing? I still haven't had a big cry over it, and I'm not sure I will. I do get a little misty-eyed and flush-faced, but it only lasts a second or two. So far.
I panicked for a moment while I was cleaning, when the gigantic bruise where the port is (RN said it was healing just fine, on schedule) was suddenly sticky. I was just sure it was infected and leaking and I started to freak out. I ran around, trying to get in the best light possible, and made the Mr look it over, finding nothing wrong. I think I splashed it while I was doing dishes, and got the human-glue damp. I felt like an idiot, but I can state with confidence, that is not going to be the last time I flip out over something dumb that isn't really a problem as I go forward with this process.
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