Half-Started or Half-Finished?
We’re halfway through the cycle. At around 5am the first chemo med finally finished. Early this evening the second med, cyclophosphamide, was started for its 2-hour run. I’ll get this again on Sunday and Monday.
The second med is a big dose of it, so they’re doing preventive medicine around it. A big syringe with Zofran anti-sickness med goes in first, since cyclophosphamide can have hefty nausea side-effects. (The “big syringe” doesn’t have a big needle on it—the fluid just goes in through my central line, so loses all the drama suggested by the name.) I also got a single unit (bag) of blood beforehand.
Because of the cyclophosphamide, it’s important to protect the kidneys from what’s going to be passing through them. (Elana’s description was great: imagine you’re drinking a bunch of olive oil before a lot of really strong booze.) A 15-minute drip of Mesna is given both before and after the chemo 2-hour run is finished, and yet again 3 hours later. This just means I’ll be woken up at midnight for the last one, but then I should get to sleep the rest of the night. (Well, except they come around at 2am to get the “obs”—blood pressure, temperature, etc—so maybe it’ll be a little bit less.)
I slept a bit longer this morning to make up for some of the sleep lost, but it’ll be a few days before I’m back in gear, I think. So I’ll stop myself from trying to think of things to write about now, and just go to sleep. 🙂
