Chemo Savvy

Our oncologist had just the chemo nurse for us. Angela is bubbly and vivacious just like Shermance.  She welcomed us with what she called is her Koolaid-man smile.  She grinned from ear to ear which was quite welcome considering the 32 chemo chairs were nearly filled with sad, quiet faces. 

We were the obvious newbies in the room.  We came in with 3 bags filled with stuff, snapped pictures every few minutes, and had an upbeat attitude – mostly recovered from the sad news a few minutes earlier.  We are still going to beat this monster and we are going to do it with a smile all the way…as much as we can.  Although they had already taken 3 vials of blood to ensure Shermance was able to have chemo administered, the nurse still had to take two more vials so they could custom order the nausea meds.  Then they administered some pre-meds including a steroid, before they administered the 2 poisons that kill not only the cancer but healthy cells as well. The first chemo medicine was bright red and carefully injected with a large syringe at a specified rate.  We were told not to be alarmed if her pee, sweat and tears were red for the next few days.  We can’t wait for her to sweat while drinking a Gatorade to shock some folks into thinking that she’s sweatin’ Gatorade out her pours…Ha.

Some of the meds caused her to sleep and others that kept her more energized.  Then they flushed out her port with saline before sending us to pick up her steroids and anti-nausea meds.  After 3 hours in the chemo room, we were ready to go home.

First chemo visit

A perfect gift for Chemo Day: lot's of movies from the Reicherts!