Chemo round four today, so I am past the half way mark, two more to go. This round was only one bag of Docetaxel so thought we would be out of the hospital pretty quickly. Wrong! You do get used to waiting and don’t get annoyed, I chuckle when I hear people say at the blood place ‘but I have an appointment at 10’oclock and my request form says urgent’ What they don’t realise is that everyone in the place has an appointment for the same time and theirs is urgent as well because all the doctors want their blood results ready for when they meet with them in half and hours time. We learn to take our books, and tablets etc to keep ourselves entertained. I did get called in for my one o’clock appointment at 2.15 but was glad because we made friends with some ladies while we waited. One of them was dealing with bone cancer and is considered terminal, they give her treatment everyday for two weeks by tablet at home and the she comes in for Chemo to the Cancer ward to have a drip. My Oncologist was telling me last month that the reason the ward is so full all the time is because people like my new friend are having much more hopeful treatment and their lives can be extended for years. The tragedy in all this is that she was screened every six months after her first breast cancer treatment and went in to see her Medical oncologist expecting a five-year all clear handshake, and he said,’ sit down, I’m sorry but you have another lump and it has spread to your lymph nodes already’. She had been having screenings every six months and had previously had an aggressive breast cancer, so clearly six monthly is too long.
I didn’t notice my lump till about September, and as I have said before from the time I was biopsied on the 30th November, till my surgery one month later on the 30th December my cancer had grown from 3cm to 5.5 cm. When I first saw my Medical Oncologist he said I would be screened every 4 months, then recently when I mentioned it he said 6 months. They are very busy and see hundreds on people in a day, so you have to be your own health carer and ask the questions pertaining to your life and well-being. I know in my life God puts people in my path for a reason, and talking with those ladies has cemented the resolve I had to make sure I have screenings every 4 months for years to come. Breast Cancer like other cancers has no age barrier, one of my friends was diagnosed just a few months before me and she was 86. Like they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Allan like all the other chemo companions sits in a small hard chair for hours while we are there, we are going to put a suggestion in the box that visitors get a recliner rocker as well
The reason there is so much waiting, is because in the Chemo Treatment Ward things don’t always run to schedule, and once you are in there, they take their time with each one of you, there is no feeling of being on a production line. By the time I was set up and my cannula in place it was about 3pm, then some Saline is flushed through the line. I had taken two Dexamethasone tablets the night before and two at breakfast, so they gave me two more and waited for half an hour for those to take effect before starting my Docetaxel. They are very thorough with each patient, checking who you are and that they have the right bag of goodies for you. Docetaxel causes lists of side effects and patients can have an allergic reaction when it is being administered, hence all the tablets before hand. As usual I had no reaction. I have a very strong constitution and heaps of people praying for me and thinking of me, all of which I am sure helps a lot. This lot of chemo can make you more tired as your blood count gets very low quicker during day 4-7 than with the previous lot which is day 10-14 and can continue for some time till your red cells start to pick up.
When we were chatting in the waiting room, I couldn’t help laughing when the lady who has the bone cancer, was telling us that after her double mastectomy they were going to dinner, she asked her friend if she could borrow her bed socks that she knew were in her overnight bag ready for their overnight stay at the hotel. These were shoved down her jumper to fill the empty spaces. Later that night after dinner, she wondered why a gentleman at the table was looking at her funny, and when she glanced down, the socks had worked their way up to nearly her shoulders. It reminded me of a Doris Day movie I love ‘On Moonlight Bay’ Doris is going on her first date dressed like a girl, she is usually in baseball clothes; Her mother trying to amp up her appeal to the boy across the road the lovely Gordon McRae, shoves two powder puffs down Doris’ top; During the bouncy dancing, first one then the second powder puff bounces out onto the floor. Poor Margorie (Doris) is mortified and runs off to the Ladies room, leaving Bill (Gordon) wondering what is going on until a fellow dancer hands him a powder puff and says ‘excuse me but I think your girl just dropped this’.
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