Rolling with the Punches

I survived my first round with the Red Devil. And after another 3 rounds, I have every expectation that I’ll emerge from this match as victor with cancer getting knocked out and not just losing on points alone. Sorry, this boxing analogy is probably only interesting to about 3 of you. I’ll stop.

My first round of AC was a bit different than my other rounds of chemo. First, I got a different set of pre-treatment drugs than prior rounds. The anti-histamines got cut, as allergic reactions to AC are very very very rare. And the anti-nausea meds got changed up for a stronger, longer lasting pair of meds to help deal with the nasty nausea caused by the Red Devil. The steroid meds were reduced (but not removed entirely) which will make my brain chemistry MUCH happier – coming down off dexamethasone every Tuesday night has been an experiment in rationalizing my depressive episode while in the middle of it: “I’m only crying because of these stupid drugs, I’m not REALLY this sad. But I FEEL sad. WAHHHH!”

Once the new pre-treatment drugs where injected, it was time for the Red Devil. I was expecting a red IV bag to get hung and for the nurse to take off while it dripped into my port. Instead, the Red Devil was administered via syringe (two syringes to be exact)! The poor nurse had to sit there and slowly inject the drug over 15 minutes while my chemo buddies and I acted like a bunch of weirdos.

Once the Red Devil was done being injected, an IV bag of the Cyclophosphamide was hung, and we had an hour to just sit around and continue our weirdness – which included the scheduler, Laura, stopping by to share a book of artsy/decorated bras called Artful Bras: Hooters, Melons and Boobs, Oh My!: A Quilt Guild’s Fight Against Breast Cancer that was created by the Quilters of South Carolina to raise money for breast cancer research. There were some pretty ridiculous bras. We laughed pretty loudly. You can check out some of these amazing bras on the Quilters of South Carolina website. I highly encourage it for a laugh, astonishment, and/or admiration.

While my cyclophosphamide IV was running, I had to pee. This is not unusual as I try to drink 200oz of fluids (mostly water) on regular days, with an additional 90oz on chemo days. So, I took my IV pole with me, and went to pee. Thanks to the Red Devil, what left my body looked NOTHING like urine. It wasn’t bright red, but it was close. I didn’t take a picture (I didn’t have my phone with me). You’re welcome (or I’m sorry … if you really want to see what it looks like, I’ll take a pic next week and show you in person – toilet pics are where I draw the line for “not blog appropriate”). Alas, my subsequent trips to the bathroom that day yielded less disturbing (more normal) looking results.

Once the IV bag was dry, I was ALMOST done with chemo for the day. Since AC does a real number on your white blood cells, there was one more new step that had to be taken – NEULASTA! Since a drastic reduction in white blood cells ups your infection risk, the doctors want to administer medication that boosts your bone marrow to produce greater quantities of white blood cells. This shot has to be give the day AFTER chemo. So, you can either go back to the hospital or you can get Neulasta. Neulasta is an on-body injection device. The nurse places it on your arm or stomach right after chemo, and 27 hours later it gives you a 45 minute injection of the drug. Once the injection is complete, you peel off the device, dispose of it properly, and go on with your day. The worst part of Neulasta was waiting for the box to insert the needle after the nurse applied the box to my stomach. It was very nerve wracking just waiting to get poked – the actual poke was relatively painless though! The best part of Neulasta is feeling like you’re part robot for a day while you have a blinking green box attached to your body. Ok – the worst part is probably that the drug makes your bones hurt (because the drug makes them work overtime) and the best part is that the drug keeps you from getting infections, but those aren’t very interesting to talk about!

Once the Neulasta box was applied and blinking green, I was officially done with my first round of AC (and 13th total round of chemo!). Only THREE MORE TO GO! I proceeded to go home and take a well deserved dog nap.

Unfortunately, the Red Devil got me hard – several days of nearly non-stop sleeping and not much eating.

Fortunately, when my appetite started to return, I had these Red Devil’s Food cupcakes to snack on (thanks Bailey!)