Cocktail Hour

Rob & I headed back down to the IUOR yesterday to have my chemo port placed. This surgery was much faster than my first (duh) and I had an easier time transitioning out of anesthesia. They "fast-tracked" me out of recovery, which was fine with me because the recovery area is a bizarre slice of hospital life, and once I was on my feet and all my vitals were good they sent us on our way. We then headed up to my oncologist's clinic on the northside of Indy, about 7 miles from our house so that I could receive the first round of chemo. After checking my blood counts to ensure I was in good shape to receive treatment, the nurse got started with administering the first drug, Adriamycin. Adriamycin is classified as a antitumor antibiotic, and it is cell-cycle specific. That means it only affects cells when they are dividing, preventing cancer cells from rapidly dividing and growing. Unfortunately, the drug doesn't know the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells, so it prevents division in all of them, which is why hair loss is a side-effect of this drug. After the nurse pushed the Adriamycin through a syringe hooked up to my port, she then hooked up the next drug, Cytoxan, to an IV drip connected to my port. Cytoxan is an alkylating agent, which means it is cell-cycle non-specific, and means that it affects cells that are in the resting phase. All told, it took about 2 hours to receive my chemo cocktail, and then we headed home. I was exhausted from the day's activities, but other than that I felt pretty good. After I was home for a little while, however, I began having that icky "hangovery" feeling, and sure enough before too long I started getting really sick. Even after taking some more antimetics, I still got sick, and so we will definitely need to tweak my meds before the next round, because they reassured me yesterday that they can keep trying drugs until they find a combination that works. Apparently vomiting and chemo don't go hand-in-hand anymore, and so I'm hopeful we can get it worked out. Today I feel tired and a little weak, but I've kept food and (THANK GOD!) coffee down this morning, so I hope today will be better. I actually feel some relief that I've gotten started and am on my way to getting all this over with. 1 round down, just 15 to go!

I've had some cocktail hours in the past that were certainly more enjoyable than yesterday's, but Rob was with me the whole day and we tried to have a little fun with it. The photo was a quick one I snapped with my laptop, and I took it before I'd had any chemo so that's why we're smiling so big. FYI - the pink ribbon Colts hat I'm wearing was a gift from my Dad, and I got compliments on it all day (maybe because the Colts are heading into the AFC Championship this Sunday on a mission to put the hurt on the Jets they should have received in December). I think he ordered it through nfl.com, but if anyone is interested in finding one let me know and I'll check with him and pass it on. I think they have them for all the pro teams, but why you'd want to purchase one that didn't have a horseshoe on it I don't know! GO COLTS!!!