Round 13
Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 02/18/19
There is a lot of superstition around the number 13. Casinos in Vegas omit a 13th floor, you need 13 witches to have an official coven, and all sorts of ominous events happen when the 13th lands on a Friday (also the day I met with my nurse coordinator to receive my official pathology of my biopsies confirming my cancer) so it makes sense that this round was a bit different than the others.
To start off Scott had a business trip to Kuwait so he wouldn't be around. He would flip out if he knew I posted this picture of him standing in front of the Persian Gulf. This man of mine hates pictures so what you see below is his very first attempt at a selfie. Not too bad!
My parents were also gone visiting my older brother in Texas. Essentially my little team that have my back when I am feeling like crap were all unavailable.
At my infusion I was assigned a new nurse. I will be honest and say she tried to explain to me that she came from a different hospital but sadly, I didn't believe her. First, she acted as if she had never seen a port and kept asking me why I had one. Second, she "massaged" my port for over 3 minutes. When I asked what she was doing (hello round 13th, not my first rodeo) she explained she needed to bring my port closer to the skin. If you haven't looked at my pictures of my port then take another look. It protrudes out of my skin over a fourth of an inch. The first time it was accessed the nurse told me how they love ports on skinnier people because they stick out so much like mine making it so easy to access. After this super odd massage she tried to insert the IV needle. Aside from the first few times my port was accessed it has not been excessively painful (it hurt those times because it really wasn't healed all the way in my opinion.) This time it was super painful and I use a numbing cream because why not? That is me pointing at the cream covering my port. In this picture with cream all over it and a plastic bandage you can see it looks like a lump on my skin, not flush, or even buried deep down under fat or tissue.
Once the needle is inside the port they have to flush the port. When this happens you get a very odd metallic taste in your mouth. In addition you do not feel the fluid go into your body because the port goes directly into your vein and then very quickly to your heart. As she attempted to flush my port I could see my skin around the port creating a small bubble and I could feel the liquid because it was cold. I really didn't want to be rude but was freaking out that she was going to actually have the medicine just drip inside my body, so I told her I didn't think it was actually in my port...
The first time I said something she didn't listen and kept pushing more fluid from the syringe. The next time I said something she gave me a big explanation about how there was too much blood coming back in the return and I needed to lay down so she would be able to access the port properly. According to her every nurse should have had to make me lay down because my port was so far under my skin. Please imagine a look on my face that says WTF. Thankfully she had to leave me alone for a few minutes because I was now bleeding all over the place and that needed to stop before we could actually begin the infusion and get a new needle in the port.
Thankfully the nurse went and talked to another nurse outside of my room that I had infuse me before. They spoke and then the nurse came back with all new needles, syringes, bandages and saline. Did I think this was going to go well? NO, but I was hopeful. After another 8 minutes (this usually takes about 8 seconds) the needle was finally in correctly (it hurt like crazy which is still a little unbelievable to me) and I could start the actual infusion...39 minutes from when I sat down in my chair.
It has been a week since the infusion and so far the symptoms for me are the same; a gnarly amount of diarrhea and really intense stomach cramps followed by nausea. Though I feel like the nausea is not as prolonged this time around and is a little less sever in the morning but seems to pick up around noon and hang outs all night. There is also this exhaustion level that I cannot seem to kick no matter how much I sleep. All in all I am getting super good at hanging out near my bathroom!
My acne rash is still here even with all the medicine we switched too about three weeks. I feel like this is also something that is going to be with me until I finish all of the chemotherapy drugs.
I do not know if this is getting easier. If anything I would say I am getting used to it, even immune, or just more accepting of how things are. Do I think there will be a day that I have a solid stool? Truthfully it doesn't seem likely. However, if my oncologist felt I needed another 20 rounds of chemo to prevent this cancer from coming back I would gladly take it.