one day down, twenty-seven to go

Chemo and radiation are underway and I'm looking forward to having the first day treatment in my  rearview mirror.   I am thankful the anticipation ended up being worse than the morning itself (isn't this so often the case?).  I now have the fanny pack in action at my side, which periodically makes a funny little noise that sounds vaguely like a frog ribbit when pumping the 5FU into my body via the port.  If you didn't know I had a chemo pump in my fanny pack, you might wonder if I had a frog in my pocket (which is in fact something Flo had a tendency to do each spring until recently).

We started the morning in the Radiation Oncology office.  The radiation takes place in a large, clean, bright room with lighted panels of leaves and clouds on the ceiling and an immense white, space-age looking machine in the middle all focused around a grey circle on the floor.  There are green beams of light flashing from various sides of the room, all meeting in the middle and forming an eery, glowing asterisk.  Once I lie down on my belly on a tray of sorts with a not-so-soft, blue foam cradle for my head, the techs in the next room steer me by remote control into the treatment field. The glowing green asterisk falls perfectly in the center of a (very tiny) tattoo on my lower back/upper butt.  My radiation oncologist made sure to let us know that although the tattoo appears black it is in fact just a very dark shade of blue India ink.

When I went in last week for my radiation simulation session this tattoo was needled into my skin along with twin tattoos on my hips that will allow the radiation techs to line me up in precisely the same way for each of these 28 radiation sessions.  During the planning session they used CT scans to outline and determine the exact field of treatment which is important so that they can maximize the crippling effects of the radiation on the tumor cells while minimizing its effect on surrounding healthy cells.  I am well aware that the 28 days of radiation will come with side effects, most of which will develop gradually and cumulatively and some of which can last for a long time.  However, today the friendly nurses and my experience in the clean white room bordered on pleasant.  If my morning of treatment had ended there I would have no complaints.  

In our chemo class last week Robbie and I listened to our nurse Sam review a long and harrowing list of the potential side effects of chemo and what to do if any of them should present themselves and what to do and not to do in hopes of keeping them at bay.   Hearing this list laid out in detail over the course of an hour, followed by a tour of the infusion room was a low point of the week, but today I tried to focus on the animal crackers I was eating while they accessed my port and got the chemo going.  

Before they started the chemo infusion, we met with an oncology PA to review questions, of which I had many, as usual, about managing side effects, probiotics, vitamins and medical marijuana among others. The "hook-up" itself was not too bad.  I had been given a numbing cream to rub on the skin at my port site and I can't say I felt the needle go into the port.  So far I can see on the digital pump screen that 8 of the 96 ml of 5FU has been pumped into me.   I haven't noticed any side effects yet other than being very sleepy.  I hope this will continue though I know the effects will likely be cumulative over the next six weeks.  For the rest of the week I go in just for radiation which takes about 5 minutes each time and then on Friday morning I get disconnected from the chemo pump for a weekend off.