First Round of Chemo - Michelle's Version

The first half of this session of ICE chemo. went fine first thing Wednesday & Thursday morning. The second half didn’t go so well. The hospital didn’t seem to know I was going to be there even though oncology called them the day before & a week ahead of time. My 24 hour infusion of chemo. didn’t get started till 2:30 pm Thursday afternoon.

Starting Tuesday I was feeling tightness in the skin around my neck & chest. It was very constricting feeling & painful. I was given a steroid in the hospital to reduce the swelling & pressure-something about releasing water that was built up. I don’t really know. They think I was having an allergic reaction because my neck & chest were all red too. And they think anxiety had to do with it, so gave me anxiety medication. I sure didn’t get very much sleep overnight at the hospital. There are people waking you up all night long.

I didn’t finish with my last hour of chemo. till Friday afternoon about 4:00-4:30 pm & by the time we had discharge papers it was 7:00-7:30 pm. I didn’t like being in the hospital. It didn’t seem like anyone really knew what was going on with me there. I would much rather be over at the cancer care center where cancer is their expertise. The tightness in my neck only got worse by Saturday afternoon & I ended up in the emergency room for 5-6 hours Saturday night. They gave me the same stuff they did in the hospital. It only works a little bit for a little while & then it’s back again. They’ve had me drugged up for the last few days thinking that would help, but I can still feel everything. I quit taking everything today, so I’m not constantly sleeping. I don’t even feel like I can function with this thing with my neck & chest. I have an appointment tomorrow morning. Hopefully something will be figured out about it.

I don’t know if I’ll be working this week or not. It all depends on if this tightness goes away. If it weren’t for that I think I’d have felt fine this weekend. I started giving myself the neupogen shots Saturday night. Neopogen stimulates the growth of white blood cells. And these are the cells that will eventually be harvested (taken out) for the stem cell transplant. I do not like giving that shot to myself. I start breathing heavy & get hot & feel like I’m hyperventilating & it freaks me out. Last year when I would get these shots I would always be in pain. So far I haven’t had any pain from them. Woo hoo! There’s a plus to report on. =)