Chemo Infusion #2

Doreen Schmidt
Sep 10, 2024
2 min read

Tuesday, September 10th - Today is chemo infusion number two. I know what to expect now but that doesn't mean the day moves any faster. I arrived at 9:45am and after blood draw, meeting with the doc, IV fluids and IV nausea medication, the actual chemo doesn't start until 12:30pm. Were at the clinic today until 3pm. Long day ...

I may have already mentioned this, but my chemo consists of 2 drugs - Taxotere (I'll refer to this as "T") and Cytoxan (I'll refer to this as "C"). The T drug is first and the IV infusion takes an hour to administer. This is the drug that is harder on the body - side effects of hair loss, nausea, neuropathy and more. During this process, I have to ice pack my feet and hands to (hopefully) avoid neuropathy and a cooling cap on my head to, hopefully, avoid losing ALL of my hair (I've lost most of the hair on my head but not my eyebrows & eyelashes - and I hope not to!) The C drug is not quite as harsh, and the infusion lasts about 30 minutes.

Once the infusions are done, the nurse applies an Onpro device to the back of my arm. This is an on-body injector that injects a drug into my body approximately 27 hours after infusions. The injection takes about 45 minutes, beeps when it's done and then I can remove it. It's annoying but at least it's short term. But this is the drug that causes bone pain. And would you believe they recommend Claritin to help with bone pain? I had no idea.

Deb came to visit for a bit today and was such a nice surprise! At least 2 nurses asked if we were twins! :) And Jon stayed the whole time - you guys, he's my rock, my safety net, safe place, my person, my everything. He's pretty incredible. If you haven't met him yet, I hope that you do someday! Did I mention he has the patience of a saint??

I'm hopeful the aftereffects will be more tolerable this time around. My first chemo resulted in 4 rough days of bone pain, fatigue and migraines. I'm more prepared this time around so fingers crossed!