First Chemo: Check!

I've made it through the first treatment. The session was to last 8 hours because they had to give me the Rutixmab very slowly as it often results in side effects because the body is somewhat "freaked out" with it and tries to fight it.

I did really well. I only had a few small reactions. After about two hours, out of the blue I got what was something like "spring allergies". All of a sudden, I was sneezing like crazy, my nose was plugged yet running and I was coughing. The roof of my mouth was feeling quite bizarre...almost like someone was sticking it with needles. After about 20 minutes, all of this went away and then I got a scratchy sore throat. That went away after about 20 minutes as well and the final reaction was just some mild stomach cramping after I ate my lunch. Yummy hospital chicken salad sandwich and some yogurt. I survived the hospital food, so that was a bonus too!

They were giving me Benadryll (however you spell that), so I was pretty sleepy at times but it was pretty noisy in the room so I couldn't really actually get any rest. I think I may have dozed off here and there, but kept getting woken up by all of the talking and commotion. The room was set up better than I thought. It was open, but there were half-walls on each side of my bed, so Todd and I had a little bit of privacy from the people next to us. Each bed and/or chair looked out into the center of the room at the nurses' station, so I got to do some people watching too. There was one guy who, for the entire day, just cleaned the crap out of every bed/chair once a person left. He would sanitize EVERYTHING in the little "cubby", so that made me feel good since I am a mini-germophobe! But he was doing this because all of our immune systems are shot, and they have to get rid of any germs that might be around. Poor guy - that is all he did for the whole day while I was there. Clean, clean, clean. Todd and I wanted to ask if he would come to our house and clean?

I got home and was pretty tired, so I went to sleep early. I took my temperature (I have to take it twice a day) and everything was normal, so all seems to be well. The nurse called me a little while ago to see how I was feeling too. She is super nice.

I've got lots of energy right now, but this is thanks to the Prednisone (the steroids). I take them for 5 days, starting on the day of chemo. The nurse said that if I wanted to clean the house, these next couple of days would be a good time! She also warned me that next week I am going to "crash" pretty hard. She said that with the Prednisone, it is like drinking 5 Red Bulls a day, and then just stopping suddenly. So, in a few days, I shall start to feel assey I am told and I could be quite moody! Poor Todd. Therefore, I will enjoy the energy and lack of side effects I have right now because next week will potentially suck.

Overall though, everything went well!