2 Down.....4 more to go!

I had my 2nd chemo treatment on Wed (Dec 8), and just recovering from that. It's actually been better than the 1st one in terms of nausea and tiredeness.....but I still don't feel "great" and I've locked myself away in my apartment since then. Today was the first day I went outside since Thursday and what a mistake that was.......It's friggin COLD here today (-12 degrees with windchill of negative thirty-something)!! So I've decided I can live without fresh air! I just crack my door open a lil now and then to let the air flow through my apartment.

A couple people have been curious about what exactly is the process for receiving chemo.....how is it done?? Soooo, I'll give you a rundown.

1) I get to the hospital and go to the "chemo area" where I check-in (give them my card and they give me a buzzer).

2) 1 hour before the chemo I have a million and one (ok about 5) anti-nausea pills to take, so I take those.

3) Then I have lots of time to kill because they always make you wait pretty long, so mummy and I prepare a picnic! This time we took sandwiches to munch on, and grapes, and smoothies :) During this time, there are usually volunteers walking around giving out juice and cookies also, so I definitely take advantage of that!!

4) My volunteer friend, Helen, comes and sits with me to keep me company while I wait! Helen's been through chemo many times, so she's got lots of good advice to give! She's so amazing, and I see her practically every time I'm in the hospital, everywhere I go! (I think she must be cloned!)

5) They finally call me in when they have a spot for me. The area is just filled with chairs of people all hooked up to their various chemo drugs. I get a warmer to put on my arm which helps to open up the veins and make it easier to find to put in the IV. Unfortunately this time, they couldn't find my veins so easily (I think my veins knew what was coming, so they decided to hide!!). I got poked twice because of this, and they had to use a baby needle the second time which resulted in the chemo taking longer!

6) My chemo "cocktail" consists of 3 different drugs (sounds like a fun party don't it??......Happy Hour!!). I get 4 syringes, which are manually pushed into the IV by a nurse, and then they hook up a bag for the last drug, which takes 30 mins to go through the IV.

And that's it! They pull out the IV, send me home, and my one week of feeling yucky begins!