First Chemo

After the port insertion they can use it straightaway so I was now good to go for my chemo.

I am on a regime known as FEC-T. Three sessions of FEC (yes this stands for something long and complicated) then three sessions of Taxotere. Highly toxic and one hopes, highly effective, drug regimes. Hair loss is virtually a certainty with FEC, usually within the first three weeks of starting it. Not massively bothered by that. Will see what sort of wigs are around, or if it's not too cold you might well see me with no hair at all but I will of course wear earrings to assist with identifying gender...

So I am on four hours bed rest following the surgical procedure. I am taken to one of three curtained bays within the chemo factory. There are also two areas of chairs where patients sit with their chemo drips. By the end of the afternoon most of those chairs are full!

A nurse called Laura looks after me. She hooks me up to a saline drip and then puts some steroids through my new port. This is called the "hedgehog injection". It temporarily makes women feel as if they have sat on a hedgehog. True. It was nowhere near as bad as childbirth though and only lasted a couple of minutes. How weird though!

Then it was time to start the FEC. The E stands for Epirubicin which is BRIGHT RED. The nurse puts everything through my port manually. I had expected to be hooked up to a drip bag. I asked about this and whether next time I would be in a chair. As the nurse injected the Epirubicin in to my main vein she casually answers no, Epirubicin is too dangerous for infusion from a bag. I resolve not to ask any more questions of this nature in the future :-/

Apparently when I start Taxotere that might be in a drip but the three FEC sessions will take place in a treatment room with a nurse.

I don't even feel the liquids going in to me and that part of the treatment passes without a hitch and takes around an hour. I have to wait a bit longer to finish my prescribed bed rest then I am packed off with steroids, anti sickness drugs plus back up anti sickness drugs in case the first ones don't work. I am armed with the phone number for the ward if I need to call anytime for example if it starts to look as if I have contracted an infection.

An appointment is made for me to come to the ward the next day for a white blood cell boosting injection to try to help my body guard against infection.

Whilst they don't expect you to lock yourself away, better safe than sorry so I am going to be taking sensible precautions and not really having visits from other people's children or going to really crowded places. My own children are germ ridden enough, thank you very much!