Treatment One // Session Two

Today I had my second lot of Chemo. I had to get there for 10am to have a blood test so they could see if my blood count and cell count was okay to go ahead with the next lot of treatment. Well what a day it turned out to be!

We got there for 10am and from then till 1pm it took for them to get blood from my line in my chest. For some bizarre reason we could get fluid in through the line fine but getting fluid out was a problem. So after having Saline pumped through the line from a drip for hours, X-rays to make sure the line hadn't moved inside and me jumping around and in all sorts of funny positions to see if the blood would come out they injected this stuff that gets rid of clots in case there was a clot that had formed at the end of the tube inside my chest.

This was the last resort and if this didn't work I was going to have to have a needle in my arm for them to take the blood that way, oh how I was dreading that so very much so I hoped and hoped this clot fluid would work and at 1.15pm and me sitting in a very funny and awkward position, best way to describe it would be the position you lie in when you are tensing yourself to push a baby out, while panting and tensing all my top body muscles and the blood finally came out.

Then it had to be run up to the lab so they could test it before my chemo was made by the pharmacy. So at 3pm I finally began my treatment. Only four hours late! Then the line stopped working again and Anita my nurse couldn't for the life of her work out why as the line inside was perfectly fine, so every so often they had to keep flushing it so clear the end so the drugs could pass through okay.

I also broke one of the drip machines. For some reason they don't like to pump through more than 500ml at a time and for my first lot of chemo I have to have the drug which is 400ml and then a bag of Glucose which is also 400ml so in the end I had to have 2 drips going, well can you imagine when it came to having to go to the loo. One of me, two pumps to push, tubes to hold up from dragging and then actually go to the toilet!!

By the time all my chemo was done it was gone 5pm and we were only meant to be in there a few hours. But I am just glad I didn't have to have a needle for the blood test because between you and me, it may have been for the best but I would have been out that hospital like a shot!!!

In total that day I had over two litres of drugs pumped through my body plus all the extra fluid they pumped in to try and clear the line. That was fun when I got home and needed to loo every five minutes! I didn't feel ill or sick just very tired at the end of the day and so glad the first lot is over and done with. Two down ten to go! Bring on July.