Day 1 - Thursday 9/4/08
Today was my first chemo treatment. (Its one of those surreal things, like you know it's coming but now here it is). Let me back up to yesterday, Wednesday, I've still been working, mainly to keep my mind busy. But I needed to leave early, I could not concentrate, I got in my car and all the way home cried, and had a breakdown when I got home. Faith is a tangible thing that seems hard for me to hold onto at times, I let fear take over, And I know when I have fear I can not have Faith. I called my brother Dave, I knew he could help. He talked me through my feelings, told me he as a struggle with holding onto Faith, and that gave me a lot of comfort. So I felt better, like I was able to do this. That night at 8pm I had to take my first medication anti-nausea 5pills, then Dennis had to wake me up at 2am to take 5 more pills. Wednesday morning, up early (didn't sleep well anyway) got the children all ready for school, said our family prayers and Dennis gave me a priesthood blessing, that I would have His peace to be with me today. Off to Ironwood Cancer Center. They hooked me up at about 8am and I didn't leave until 2:30pm what a long day. The nice thing is they give me some pre-chemo medication, one is Benadrill which makes me really tired so I slept the first couple of hours. The other one is an anti-nausea medication, and I had the strangest reaction, thank goodness Dennis was sitting right by me. All of a sudden I felt this really hot sensation flow down both my arms, my hands started to tingle and then in my lower abdomen that hot sensation started to move up toward my neck and I felt heavy in the chest, It scared me and I looked over to Dennis and said "get the nurse" they came over and shut off the medication, She said I was probably just a reaction, the sensation went away and then they turned on the medication again, a little slower this time. Other than that, it just takes a long time to have three different chemo treatments. They give you one at a time and each one takes about 1-2 hours to give. Its an interesting thing sitting there with all the other people each getting their own mix of chemo, talking and sharing stories (its like having a baby story) everyone has a cancer story. A woman came in with her mother, I could tell this was her first time, she was nervous and scared, she sat right across from me. After they hooked her up she was crying and afraid, I didn't know what to say. Finally I caught her eye and said, looks like we will see each other a lot, You'll be here every three weeks and so will I, we will have to compare bald heads. We talked a little, she has kids at home, that are about the same ages as mine were last time I did this. We talked about how they were handling it. We had a nice chat and as she left she said, "bring pictures of your kids and I will to". A little while later another woman came in and shared with me that she uses these "sea bands" to help with the nausea. You know the ones people use when going on a cruise. So after we got home I sent Dennis out for some. They are just a wrist band you wear that puts acupressure on your wrist. So far so good.
I feel very blessed that I feel good. I've put all my faith in my Heavenly Father to bless me that I can continue to feel good, because my family needs me.