Arrived at the Infusion Center for my 8:45 am appointment and was delighted to find that I had been assigned my good nurse Maria again ... yippee! I did not wear my wig to the center since although I have been losing strands of hair in the shower and when brushing, I do not have bare patches on my head. Besides, if my hair started falling out in clumps at the center, it wouldn't shock anyone ... surely they would have seen this before. But I did pack two scarves just in case.
My CBC was a mixed bag. My absolute neuts went up to 13.6 from the miserable 1.00 last week. This pushed it over the normal range of 1.8 - 8.0. This usually means that my body is fighting an infection somewhere but I have no temperature or pain ... there are no physical manifestations of infection any where. But the nurse had to get approval from my oncologist to treat me. Got it after about an hour.
My premeds this time were Pepcid, Benadryl, Tylenol, Aloxi and Decadron. In addition I will have to take the prescribed Decadron for three days -- the day before chemotherapy, the day of the chemo and the day after. This is to combat the nausea I had after the first TCH infusion.
I also learned that if you give Decadron too fast it causes what the nurses call "Hot Pants" syndrome which I experienced during the first infusion. It is the weirdest sensation ... you feel this intense hot itching sensation in your entire pelvic area which spreads to your head. This time Maria gave it to me over a 30-minute period and I did not have "Hot Pants"!
I know it is too much to expect not to have a repeat of that horrible Saturday ... why should I be different from anyone else going through this? I can already feel my body changing. Oh, how I will hate the days coming up. But I know it will end ... so I can do this ... I can do this.
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