Let the games begin...
October 12, 2001

My first treatment went well. My dad came out to Victoria on Friday morning and he, my friend Rebecca and I went to the chemo clinic. The nurse was really nice. I sat in a chair and had my arm warmed up so the drugs wouldn't hurt when they went in. Then I was hooked up to an IV and had saline water run through it. The nurse explained all my anti-nausea drugs (Zofran, Decadron, Stematil) to me and I took some. Then I got my first drug. I got 2 injections and 2 IV bags.

The last drug, the D part of ABVD, took the longest. About 20 minutes into it, I started getting really itchy and really red on the back of my neck. The nurse stopped the drug and my neck got a little better. She then gave me some benadryl to help with the itching. She mentioned it would make me a bit drowsy. In a few minutes I was incredibly tired; too tired to talk or do much of anything. I then got the drug hooked back up, but diluted, so it took extra time. My arm got a little sore throughout it all but heat helped with that.

In total, it took about 6 hours. I felt really tired becuase of the benadryl but was awake enough by the time it was over.

That night, I felt fine. I kept up with my drugs (Zofran and Decadron for 2 days). Decadron got me pretty wired at first. It's a steroid. The next day I felt some nausea but nothing too serious. I was a little tired but again, nothing that would stop me from going about my day. I was really surprised at how good I felt but had a feeling the worst was to come. I decided that I would fly back home on Tuesday. I spent the weekend packing up my room. On Monday, I felt a little worse and I got a bad headache and my jaw was aching. I went to the doctor and he told me to take some more Decadron but skip the Stematil since it was probably causing the pain. On Tuesday, I felt OK but spent most o the day in a plane. I took gravol to make me drowsy.

Wednesday and Thursday were the worst. I stopped taking prescription drugs and stuck to gravol. I felt pretty pukey. I also got a chest pain and my head pain was still kicking around. My chest pain felt weird.

By Friday, I felt better. And I felt great on the weekend. I think my anti-nausea drugs will have to be played around with since nausea for 6 days doesn't have to be tolerated.

I haven't had any mouth sores and my fatigue isn't much of a problem so far. I have found I have difficulty falling asleep, I'm not sure what that's related to.

I still have all my hair. Sometimes my head feels tingly but I'm not sure if I just think it is or if it really is. I'm a little worried about when my hair will start falling out.

I got everything sorted out so my next chemo is October 26 in Ottawa. If everything goes like this each time, this won't be that bad at all.