Let me explain, yesterday was my last 6-hour session in this my final round (for now) of chemotherapy, I have a one-hour session next week but the 6-hour one is always the most difficult to endure. Things were a hold up because of my regular appointment with my oncologist ‘Dr. Ch’  apparently things were backed up.  Before I go in to further details about why I closed the chemo ward let me tell you about my oncologist meeting.

I’m over the hope that one day ‘Dr. Ch’ is going come bouncing in the room saying something like “It’s all been a mistake your cured, no more cancer” that just ain’t going to happen.  I am realistic enough and have come to accept that I have bladder cancer and that or some other form of cancer is going to kill me. As I think I have mentioned before every time I have met with her I hear something that makes my situation worse, some more to get my head around.  Many other cancer patients have endured many years on their own journey and mine has only been going since May of this year but to make the road underfoot smoother but I try to grab hold of something positive so the sleepless nights become more bearable.  This time she didn’t come with good new but rather better news.

Seems that they are happy with the lymph node in my neck, it would seem the chemo has visually at least keep that in check. I was told that if it did get bigger that after speaking to a radiologist that if it does increase that they will give it some radiation to shrink it.  This was better news than before when I was told ‘there was nothing they could do about it’  and that it would be the carrier of my ultimate demise. Along with this, she told me I was doing well, enduring the chemo well and that she wasn’t expecting any surprises when I have the Cat-Scans next month and that even though we are still not looking for a cure we are are now looking a ‘quality of life’ and ‘life extension’ All-in-all better news than usual.

Anyways the purpose of this article was to talk about closing the chemo ward.

‘Stick around Peter I’m now on overtime’

So my 6-hour session as I mentioned, was later to start and given that the chemo ward closes at 5:00 we were tight for time anyway. Around the 4th hour things when of the rails, having had problems with my veins collapsing it’s around hour 4 that they switch one chemo ‘juice’ for another.  This one apparently can irritate the veins and given mine are a problem things quickly go from bad to worse in a hurry and they did.  The ‘juice’ even though it drips are in fact forced through a pump, if your veins suddenly collapse as mine did the pump is fighting to the liquid in you but meets resistance.

Resistance means discomfort, then ouch, then pain, then excruciating pain, things start beeping, nurses come running. Solution one is to increase the IV and turn up the pumping power – ouch, ouch didn’t work more pain.  Plan B shut everything down, heat up my arm with heated blankets – try again more ouch, more pain didn’t work. Plane C lower the drip and pump rate, seemed to work a little ouch that I could live with, problem was that at that rate the ‘juice’ would be ineffective due to the fact it has to been administered with a certain time frame and at the new drip/power rate that wasn’t going to happen.

Plan D

The only solution was to open up another vein on the other arm – great plan but it seems the body does a great job of protecting its self and if one vein retreats the others do the same thing, probably out of sympathy. After 30 minutes or so of digging around (literally), we found a vein that worked well enough to take the chemo juice without collapsing.

Yay it worked – I apologized to my chemo nursed Stephanie (I call her ‘Step-on-me’) for all the problems she was having and it was then that she said ‘S’ok Peter I’m now on overtime’ Bottom line we didn’t get out of there until close to 7:00 that’s a long day when you show up at the hospital at 9:30.  Before I close a HUGE shoutout to the Chemo nurses at The Odette Cancer Center you ladies are the best, your kindness and attention to patients is remarkable.  I found out yesterday that Step-on-me even though she looks 20 has been an RN for 7 years she has been in the chemo wards for 4 of those years. Someone once told me you are never are assigned to the chemo wards, you have to volunteer.  Often joking around with us they seem to really enjoy their work.

So for the long post but it was a long and eventful day.

Have a great day Peeps

Peter &t

PS:  Edited on the fly as usual – if you spot any glaring grammatical mistakes put it down to many years of cheap drugs and bad whiskey….