One Down

Today was my first chemo treatment. I have to say, it was about a quarter as bad as I thought it would be, well, the treatment itself anyway. The clinic where I am receiving the therapy is located at Crawford Long Hospital here in Atlanta, a division of Emory Healthcare. The staff is overwhelmingly friendly, I attribute it to the fact that they all have some weird fascination with bald people.
The area itself resembles most any doctor's office, except they have exceptionally comfortable reclning Laz-e-boy chairs. Of course, the dead give away is that each chair is equipped with it's own nifty IV pump. The pumps are both battery operated and have a plug in the wall, lucky for me because I had to get up to use the restroom about every 4th minute while receiving the therapy.


Here's my dad reclining in one of the comfy chairs. He slept almost the whole time, so I don't know why he looks so unhappy- he didn't have a needle in his arm!








My nurse was very attentive. A few of the drugs involved in my treatment are "pre-meds". These are to help aid fighting nausea and to keep me healthy. All the drugs are administered through a port (a catheter) which is basically a gateway into my veins.

PORT OF ENTRY


My treatment itself is a combination of 4 drugs. The combo is known as "ABVD", which stands for the first letter of each corresponding drug administered:
Adriamycin
Bleomycin
Vinblastine
Dacarbazine
All of the drugs in my chemo "set" are forced into the catheter, meaning that they are not hanging bags like most drugs in an IV and for those of you who have only seen an IV on tel vision, I am hating you right now... The forced drugs are manually "pushed" into my body by the nurse. I'd be surprised if you haven't stopped reading by this point.

And that brings me to being nauseated. Sorry, I didn't say this was going to be a cake walk, folks - it's cancer. Again, here's that word "luckily". Luckily, with modern medicine and so many bulimics out there, pharmaceutical companies have come up with some AMAZING nausea medicines. Be forewarned, they AIN'T cheap, so... I wouldn't recommend binge drinking and asking for any of the stuff I'm on unless you have some extra petty cash. Most of the afternoon I felt a little like I'd eaten some bad guacamole and washed it down with sour milk, but that has subsided and allowed me to spend a little time with you.

I want to thank all of you reading this and let you know how much I appreciate your thoughts and positive energy. Only 11 more treatments to go!

Good night, X.