15th July - Cycle 1, Day 1 Chemo

And so it begins!

I arrived with Jacki in the ambulatory care day ward just before 9am with one elderly chap already hooked-up on his treatment. I only had to wait for a few minutes before I was connected to flush the PICC line before being connected to other pre-chemo drugs such as an anti-nausea infusion. 

After a little over two hours I was connected to my first bag of chemo drugs (Etoposide, the 'E' part of BEP).  This was very uneventful, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but whatever it may have been it didn't happen.  It was nice being able to sit in a comfortable reclining chair as I was going to be spending many hours in these chairs over the next few weeks.

Wired up to a bag of chemo.......

I also had a quick chat with a couple of other guys who had arrived in the ward who were also having the same BEP treatment. Will was starting his third and final cycle and seemed to have coped pretty well through the previous two. The other chap, Jonathan, was on for his first cycle one bleomycin top-up so was literally one week ahead of me in terms of treatment. He'd already said that he'd gone off coffee and was struggling with fatigue, but other than that he seemed to be doing pretty well. The main noticeable difference between the two was that Jonathan still had a full head of hair whereas Will's was all gone. It will be interesting to see if I bump into Jonathan next week to see how his hair's going as it'll be day 15 for him and I've read that day 16 is d-day with regards to hair loss.

The first infusion of Etoposide was fine. I didn't feel any adverse effects and I ate my lunch with no problem at all (a nice healthy super salad Jacki kindly got me from the on site M&S). 

A bag of chemo drugs covered in a brown bag (due to sensitivity to light)......

I then had further infusions in the afternoon and again didn't feel any particular side effects, other than needing to visit the loo to pass a lot of fluid as I was constantly being dripped with solution to protect my kidneys from the adverse effects of chemo.  It's also important to pass the toxins from the drugs quickly as possible to prevent any damage to kidneys.

I was also connected up to the saline solution in the afternoon so was actually infusing two types of fluids as I was also connected to the Cisplatin chemo (the 'P' in BEP). The saline is already packed in my back-pack complete with the pump ready to take home tonight.  Will already gave me a heads-up that this pack may drive me mad during the night as it beeps to inform of any kinks in the tubing which causing a blockage in the flow of the solution. Without the beeping the noise it makes whilst dispersing the fluid reminds me of the noise the motor makes on a car's windscreen wipers so hopefully this won't be too distracting during the night.

Thankfully time didn't pass as slowly as I though it would and it certainly helped chatting with the other patients on the ward. Well, I say a ward but it's more of a clinical lounge. I even helped with manning the phones whilst the two nurses went on their lunch (well I did tell them that I'd hold the fort so what was I supposed to do!?).  This seemed to provide a bit of light hearted entertainment to people as I walked over to answer the phone whilst transporting my mobile pump stand and drip.  I'd even politely requested whether I could watch The Open golf on the TV tomorrow so it looks like this could be a goer! I would have happily watched it online through my iPad but unfortunately this ward isn't wifi enabled, and even if it was I doubt it would be fast enough to support live streaming.

By around 4pm I did start to feel a little nauseous and by the time I got home at 6pm I was starting to feel really tired. I did manage to eat my dinner without any problems, my appetite certainly wasn't affected. I hit the hay at 9 o'clock and woke up a couple of times during the night needing the loo. I need to measure all my fluid outputs to make sure my kidneys are working properly to flush out the toxic chemo drugs.