{"id":6596,"date":"2011-09-12T23:06:39","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T04:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=6596"},"modified":"2011-09-18T20:27:37","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T01:27:37","slug":"chemo-treatment-one-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=6596","title":{"rendered":"Chemo Journal-Treatment Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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September 12-Treatment Day 1<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I’ve been sluggish all day.\u00a0 Feel kinda like my heads in a cloud.\u00a0 (Like MC on a typical day.)\u00a0 No nausea!\u00a0 And am even more thrilled that I have chosen to work with the staff at SCOA.\u00a0 If I wasn’t convinced until today, I am S.O.L.D.\u00a0 Hands-down, the best place to be (under these circumstances, that is.)\u00a0 First thing this morning, I was met by a familiar face who has known me since I was McCanless’s age.\u00a0 (Remember, Cyndi, my kindergarten BFF?)\u00a0 Cyndi’s dad walked up, dressed to the nines in his bright pink shirt with a smile that could melt the room.\u00a0 So cheerful and happy.\u00a0 A cancer survivor who volunteers his time each Monday along with so many other happy volunteers and nurses.\u00a0 This place is kickin’\u00a0 Even the music was great!\u00a0 I’m a lucky girl!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On my throne at SCOA<\/p>\n

By the way, I’m totally a sunlight girl and have bribed everyone here to reserve me a chair on the wall of windows overlooking the brook and bird feeders.\u00a0 (If I do ever wake up during these things, I at least want to see outside.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/a>My view today, peeking over my fabulous new quilt.<\/p>\n

Guy on my right was hilarious for the first 10 minutes, before he conked out.\u00a0 Girl in the middle came in asleep and stayed that way, and girl on my far left ate Sour Patch Kids, and kept laughing and rolling her eyes at the guy on the end.\u00a0 It was all very funny and surreal.\u00a0 Once I realized I was the only one up, Nurse Crazy Fun, came up and shot with me with extra Benadryl-ish stuff.\u00a0 I swear I asked her if it was Roofies.\u00a0 I was out cold in 10 seconds and remember NOT A THING.\u00a0 Mel swears I ate 8 chicken nuggets from Chick Fil A.\u00a0 I beg to differ.<\/p>\n

I digress…I’m going to pull a C-card and say that I’m already in chemo brain mode.\u00a0 (I know it’s probably WAY too early to pull that out, but I’ll try it out to see how it feels.)\u00a0 I know I’m a bit scattered, but here is how the day went…<\/p>\n

Mel and I arrived at SCOA around 9:30, after I ate a fruit and yogurt parfait, we checked in, paid co-pay, I had blood draws (again super easy and painless), waited to make sure I was a go and by 10:30, I was getting my port accessed.\u00a0 I was a bit nervous about that, but it turns out, our two chemo nurses LOVE to make everyone comfortable, all the time.\u00a0 She squirted my port area with a\u00a0 biofreeze-type cold spray, and before I knew it, I was being pumped up with my cocktail du jour.\u00a0 She gave me something to make me groggy, which she thought would make me sleep.\u00a0 When that didn’t work, she knocked me out cold with a super duper Benedryl\u00a0 (Note to self:\u00a0 MUST find this stuff for my girls.)\u00a0 Within 10 seconds of her socking it to me, I was out.\u00a0 Cold.\u00a0 Until 4:30. Honestly I was the ONLY one in the room when I woke up.\u00a0 Last man standing, or sleeping, I guess.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mel resumed his post on his mac and I slept.\u00a0 No thank you notes written, no new kindle books read.\u00a0 No phone conversations for me.\u00a0 We left and I was hungry, so we stopped by Krispy Kreme and I ate THREE chocolate donuts.\u00a0 THREE.\u00a0 No appetite loss here, girls.<\/p>\n

It’s 11 pm and I’m tired and groggy but its been a great evening.\u00a0 Earlier, McCanless came over to visit, before heading over to my moms, and Mel and I had to go out to get my arsenal of drugs from CVS, so we stopped my his mom’s to see Clare.\u00a0 She was doing fantastic.\u00a0 Both girls are certainly not lacking attention at this point.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I was told to expect:\u00a0 After Mel administers my Neulasta<\/a> shot tomorrow morning, I’ll need to take\u00a0 Claritin.\u00a0 (Number 1:\u00a0 I’m super thrilled about Mel giving me a shot.\u00a0 Should be fun.\u00a0 Number 2:\u00a0 I have NO idea what Claritin has to do anything with the pain from this shot- I think I’ll do a little research tonight.)\u00a0 Apparently, I’ll have soreness and aches and joint pain (Flu-like symptoms) for a few days after my shot.\u00a0 (Neulasta is a white cell booster-it gets them going to help fight infection, as you understand chemo kills everything in it’s path apparently, and I really need to keep those white ones around!)\u00a0 I also have two oral meds for nausea, one makes me sleep, the other can keep me awake.\u00a0 Once I get over the flu-like symptoms, my nurse said then the fatigue will hit, as my blood count will be lowest during that second week.\u00a0 When week three rolls around I’ll be feeling better by the day and just as soon as I feel normal again, I’ll have my next treatment.\u00a0 So, Mel’s planning a fall neighborhood front yard party for one of those good weeks-in honor of no one, just because he wants to.\u00a0 Maybe that’s what he did all day.\u00a0 I have no clue.<\/p>\n

Sidenote 9\/13:\u00a0 After realizing Mel has no clue about medicine, I decided this morning to call my friend and nurse extraordinaire, April, to administer my Neulasta.\u00a0 Painless!\u00a0 Best decision yet.<\/p>\n

Overall Day 1<\/strong>: Feeling loved, and surrounded and very optimistic that this will not hold me down (too long anyway)!<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 12-Treatment Day 1 I’ve been sluggish all day.\u00a0 Feel kinda like my heads in a cloud.\u00a0 (Like MC on a typical day.)\u00a0 No nausea!\u00a0 And am even more thrilled that I have chosen to work with the staff at SCOA.\u00a0 If I wasn’t convinced until today, I am S.O.L.D.\u00a0 Hands-down, the best place to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-6596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chemotherapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6596"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6619,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596\/revisions\/6619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}