In the chemo clinic.....

Firstly, I had a chat with the nurse to run through my side effects check list;
Sickness (check), infections (nope), Breathlessness (nope), Pain/tingling in arms/hands (check), diarrhea (no comment), constipation (again no comment, but it makes me laugh how 2 extremes of a spectrum could either be possible), indigestion (check), mouth soreness (Nope).

The pain in my arms I realised had been due to my chemo drugs and the nurse confirmed this. The Epirubicin can irritate and damage the veins in my chemo arm. This can cause vein hardening and shortening and so give pain when I extend my arm. We went ahead with my last Epirubicin chemo but need to keep an eye on it because it can cause problems (oh joy, a problematic second arm to match my problematic surgery arm... I think all that will deserve its own blog post at some point). But I think she said Taxotere is less damaging to the veins.

So I was into the chair at 11:30 and popping my arm into a warm bucket of water to get my veins to show. The hunt began!
********************Squeamish look away now ****************
My veins all looked very good apparently... but they decided not to play ball. This is common, it becomes harder as the chemo goes on and the veins harden. First lovely nurse Shanti had 2 attempts in my hand and got the needles in... but not properly... I won't go into how they check... that's not for the feint hearted. Then switch to lovely Sister Emma, who had another 2 goes moving up to my wrist by my thumb and into my forearm (they progressively have to move higher and can only use my left arm as I cannot have needles stuck into my surgery arm due to lymph node surgery and risk of lympohdema swelling [again for that other arm post].)
Cue Dawn's first mild tear shedding. I began to get scared they wouldn't be able to do my chemo and would have to resort to a line straight into my chest which I really do not want. But then came nurse Martin who's been doing this 12 years and he had a go into my forearm after telling my NOT TO MOVE, I could scream, cry whatever, but don't move... YIKES talk about relaxing me. But it was one of the least painful attempts and was completely successful so hurrah!
********************Squeamish can come back now*************

Then we progressed with my drip and drugs. At some point the nurses had a chat about there being no back flow to the drip (read between the lines it could have been leaking away into my tissues and causing serious damage), so they had to look out for blistering and pain. This is where I got my second teary session.... It's actually very hard to describe pain. Before this chat I had mentioned to James it was uncomfortable... but was it just discomfort from having a needle there, was it due to me thinking about it and building up the pain, or is it a pain... I got a bit frustrated as I couldn't describe it. But turns out all fine and no problems whatsoever developed. The Cyclophosphamide wasn't nearly as bad this time but still gave me funny feelings in my nose and nausea (which i am going to have to stop typing about as its making me queasy thinking of it).

So we left around 1:30, thank you very much, see you in 3 weeks.
Oh, and the things I put in my pre-chemo blog didn't actually happen... I decided my wig was too itchy to wear on a chemo day (it doesn't usually itch either) and we never got round to playing that scrabble.

and back home...
Breakthrough! I didn't vomit!!! hurrah!

Arrived home at 2:30 and straight into bed. The crap feelings are starting earlier now and so I just go to bed and become pretty immobile to avoid vomit inducing and I tend to communicate in grunts (I had to dictate my blog entry to James). But this time no sickness. I managed to keep down 2 crumpets and marmite.

Pill tally for the day: 7