Chemo Rookie
Hi friends,
A few of you wanted me to let you know how things went today, on my first day of chemo. I appreciate your support more than I can explain. I thought I’d let you know how things are going.
It was long. 6 hours. But most of that was just sitting and waiting. There are a lot of paperwork and procedures on the first day, and it certainly wasn’t the hospitals fault. I expected it to be long, and I brought some entertainment. And anyway, it’s certainly not like I had anything better to do.
The Cancer Center at Sherman Hospital was really great. Because it was my first time, they put me in a private room with one of those snazzy hospital beds and spent a lot of time explaining things to me. I received 9 kinds of drugs today, and the oncology nurse sat with me and my parents for the whole process, which I felt was really extraordinary, even if it might be standard.
The only thing I had trouble with was the one drug that was probably the least of my worries. They gave me some regular ol’ Benedryl to compensate for any allergic reactions I might have had to the chemo and the stuff couldn’t have been more annoying. Maybe it was an extra high dose or the fact that it was an IV drip. My head couldn’t stay awake, but my legs couldn’t stop moving. Picture Sleeping Beauty as a sprinter, or a cross between the Tryptophan-like tactics of poor John Kerry’s speech writers and the body of a dancing Napoleon Dynamite.
I came home drowsy and slept it off. A friend brought us a fantastic dinner, and since then I’ve felt – to my sincere surprise – really well. The nurse said that this would happen, that the steroids would make me feel spunky for awhile, but that I would drop after a day or two (so I figure I better get this e-mail out while I still got some spunk! Note: for evidence of “spunk,” see John Kerry joke, paragraph 4, line 4.).
The best news of the day is that the bone marrow test came back today and it showed that my bone marrow is completely clear of cancer. Had the cancer spread to my bone marrow, my chances of survival would have considerably dropped, so I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know that these bones of mine are clean.
To be honest, I was really anxious about today. There’s a lot of discordant information about chemo therapy – how it’s terrible, or how it’s not-so-bad, etc., etc. – and especially about the first day. I believe this dissonance is due to the fact that chemo therapy is a distinctly individual experience, and that each person is effected mentally and physically in decidedly different ways, even by the same drugs. As it turns out, today was a relieving, giant step toward getting rid of this dumb thing.
That being said, I understand the more difficult parts of chemo therapy are still to come, so I’m not counting my chickens quite yet. Nevertheless, I’m indescribably consoled by having experienced the chemo process firsthand and to have seen the immediate reaction my body takes to the drugs. I also feel very confident that I’m in good hands at the Cancer Center at Sherman, and that comfort, you can imagine, feels priceless.
Thank you again to all of you for helping me through this. Being the social person that I am, I’ve found that it has been the concern, affection and humor of my friends and family that has given me the most strength during the past weeks.
Future Cancer Survivor,
Dave Hahn
thanks for sharing, glad to hear that your bones are clean