"argh!"

So, sometimes things don’t go right. Twenty minutes into my second chemo, I felt funny. I sat up straighter, I had a tightening in my stomach that radiated to my back, bringing labor pains back to mind. Suddenly I was hot—but this was a hot flash on steroids, like I was about to possibly self-combust. I buzzed the nurses then told my posse (Linda, my friend of 35 years who had flown in from Ohio, and my daughters), “I feel funny.”
I suddenly felt it was important to report every odd occurrence so that after I passed out they would know.

“Stars, I see stars.”

Then, as the nurses rushed in, “…trouble breathing…”

They stopped the drip, gave me steroids, Benadryl, oxygen; Linda massaged my back. My daughters looked pale and hovered close. The clenching spasms stopped. I could breathe. The stars twinkled on for a while.

I am one in 2% who have an allergic reaction on a second dose of Taxotere. Again with the statistics. Yippee.

So, it is protocol to “challenge” the reaction. After a half hour or so, they started the drip again at a half-rate. Admittedly, I was a bit jittery at this point, but within 20 minutes my back labor was back.

So, the good news was that they took the IV out, and we went home to enjoy chicken chili and the rest of a fun, no-side-effects-bothered weekend. Linda and I got some serious Christmas shopping finished and had a great weekend together.

I found out the bad news on Wednesday. There are several types of chemo drugs. They range from nasty to nastier. I got signed up for the nastier one. The one that eats your skin tissue if a vein blows, so I have to get a port—the one that in just 15% of cases can damage the heart. (I raised my brow at the doctor,
“That’s comforting; you’re talking to a 2%-er.”) …The one that, after my first application, left me with three days of nausea.

The worst part of the news however, was that I had to start all over again. The drugs aren’t substitutable—for the best effect I still need four applications.

You could hear my “argh!” across four states. But it doesn’t take long for the perspective to set in. My hospital roomie, and new friend, has two different courses of chemo and then radiation to do. There are thousands of cancer patients taking chemo weekly, or radiation daily, to stay alive. I can’t whine about this.

What I like to do is think about spring. I usually do this at this time of year anyway. This time my dreams involve gardening and grass and growing my hair back.