First of all, I again want to thank you all for the incredible support! You're all so amazing :)
I had my first chemo treatment on Saturday and it went far better than I ever could have imagined. They pre-medded me with like 4 different anti-nausea drugs and they worked like a charm. It was quite the relief as the nausea/vomiting side effect was what I was dreading most of all. Hopefully future treatments will be similar in that respect!
The actual chemo drugs didn't seem to have a huge effect as they went in. I was extremely anxious and trying not to panic but, aside from that, that's all that happened. I maybe got a little sweaty but that was more likely nerves than anything. One of the meds can cause anaphylactic allergic reactions, so that was a little stressful too, but that one went in without any problems either, so huzzah!
I love my port so much. I cannot imagine having to have an IV catheter placed every time i needed chemotherapy, especially since my arm veins branch more than is usual and, if any of these chemo drugs get injected outside the vascular system, they can cause some serious damage. Even with a well placed IV, normal saline can be painful going in. With the port, I barely felt anything and it was amazing. Plus, like today, I can have blood drawn from it without having to feel anything as they put lidocaine at the site prior to poking. It's an amazing invention and I am so thankful to have it!
After chemo, I had no side effects aside from like 10 minutes of incredibly mild nausea that some additional Zofran took care of in no time.
Sunday, I had more blood drawn to see if there were any problems and everything came back normal, so woo! So normal, in fact, that my oncologist allowed me to go home that day. After a little over a week in the hospital, it was incredible to go home and sleep. I've been doing well since, with only a bit of fatigue, and eating really well.
Oh, one thing that was awesome, even two days after receiving the chemo I could feel that my armpit lymph nodes got considerably smaller in size and today I think they're like 1/4th of the size they were prior to the chemo. The first chemo kills off something like 90% of the tumor cells but it's so amazing to actually be able to grossly feel a difference! I'm so relieved that this is going so smoothly thus far. My blood cells and platelets should be hitting their low point in the next few days, but hopefully that won't cause too many problems. It would be amazing if I could get through this process without having another hospital stay.
That's all I've got right now. A bit of a nap is sounding good right now :)
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