My first chemo

I had my first chemo last Tuesday 31/3/09. These are some snapshots on how it's done. It's not that bad. The drugs are injected into the vein. One good thing being in the cold weather, when the nurse poked the needle, it's not that painful at all.

I'm wearing a cold cap to help reduce hair loss. It reminds me of the Combat movie when I was little, hence I name this cold cap "topi combat". It is worn 15 minutes before the treatment, and it has to be changed every 45 minutes throughout the treatment. For the whole two hour duration, my husband has got to run upstairs to get the cold cap from the freezer.

These are the drugs that got into my vein. The red coloured one is Doxorubicin; two tubes of it. In between the nurse injected in the anti sickness medication. Then only the big bag of Cyclophospamide is dripped into the vein. Surprisingly, I don't feel hot at all. With the saline (salt water) and those much drugs that got into my vein, the one thing that I need was to pee. Luckily the nurse warned me that my urine might be pinkish. True enough, I had a pink urine! Put some milk on it, it would become "air bandung"... one of our country's favourite drink :-)

The cold cap needs to be worn 45 minutes after the treatment too and while waiting, the nurse made us coffee and offered us biscuits. What a service! No way we can get it anywhere else.

How is my after effect of the chemo? Right after, I felt a bit dizzy but I can walk around the house at ease. My taste bud is also alright; I was really hungry when I get back, luckily Nadia brought me "sambal ikan bilis" and her crysenthemum tea...

I had problem during the night whereby the whole body felt numb; even my face felt "semut2". My joints were aching and I had a terrible time sleeping. I've been tossing around for almost two hours, can't get to sleep, envying my husband snoring, that I went down and made myself a hot chocolate and oats. I applied my aloe very icy cool to relieve the aching and Alhamdulillah, I managed to get some sleep.

Yesterday and today is also fine. I notice that my taste bud is getting funny, so when I cook, my husband gets to taste it. Luckily I don't have sore mouth yet. I guess the lemon grass tea helps. I've been drinking lots of fluids and taking lots of fruits. Aldi is nearby our house where we can get good supply of fruits; kiwi fruit 6 for 49p, apples 49p, grapes 69p, oranges 69p...oww!