Here we go again for chemo treatment #2. This treatment and side effects were better than the first round.
We went into the treatment on July 31st. The nurse accessed my port and then tried to draw blood out. Something was wrong though and no blood would come out. This kind of worried me. The nurse tried a few tricks to get the blood out but nothing seemed to work. This was really weird because my port has always worked fine before with no problems. I am guessing something was not done right when it was accessed in the ER. The nurse had to put some declotter medicine in the port and then we had to wait for a half an hour before we could try and get blood for the labs again. While waiting, I went up and saw the oncologist. Dr. S was out of town so I saw a doctor from St. George named Dr. Nadauld. He was good and said everything looked fine and the declotter stuff would work fine and we would be on our way soon. We went back down to the Infusion Clinic and thankfully the declotter worked and the nurse was able to get the blood and the flow we needed. Then however we had to wait for the lab results before we could start the chemo. Of course we had to wait because cancer equals waiting.
Finally the chemo started and we were out of there in a few hours. When we got home, I had decided that I was not going to take any other medications besides the required steroids and just see how it goes. I think that was the best decision because I did not have any of the negative side effects I had last time. I was never nauseated, didn't have diarrhea or was not plugged up at all this time around. I was still really tired and had no energy for the first week but that was it. Maybe my body can't handle Zolfran and Imodium?
So I did a lot better this time around. That is until wonderful Aunt Flow came around. I don't know what the deal is but chemo must make Miss Flow pretty upset because it was terrible and lasted almost two weeks. I was really concerned that I was hemorrhaging because I was passing multiple large clots each day and going through a lot of pads in a short amount of time. Because of this, I was even more tired and uncomfortable. I called both the oncologist and my gynecologist and they both said that this was normal for a chemo patient. In my head I'm thinking "No this is not okay!" The oncologist said the only thing we need to worry about is if my blood counts were still okay so he had me come in for some blood tests to check my levels. I never heard back about the results so I assumed they were fine. Thankfully after 11 days that too passed.
Another side effect I have this time was the wonderful mouth sores... I had two huge cankers. One on my tongue and one on the inside of my cheek. These were great because it made my mouth hurt all the time and eating was so... enjoyable...not! Anyway I was talking to another breast cancer survivor and she told me how to fix it. I told her I was just using my normal toothpaste and she told my to stop doing that because that was causing the mouth sores because it was drying and irritating my mouth. She recommended using Biotene toothpaste and mouthwash and she said that would help a lot. So I went straight to the store and bought some. Guess what, she was right! After using that toothpaste for a couple days, the cankers were gone! I am going to continue to use this wonderful Biotene and hopefully not have any more of these nasty sores. Thank you Jenny!
So other than the other side effects of losing taste buds and my sore fingernails, that is how this treatment went. I am so glad that these treatments are easier on my body than I thought they would be. I am generally healthy and can get the things done that I need to. I am also glad that I have great family help and support. Russell has been so awesome at helping me with everything. My parents also came up and stayed for a few days to help out during that first week. But mostly I am glad that I am half way done with these treatments!
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