Saturday, November 12, 2011

Had my first round of Chemo on Thursday. They gave me EIGHT drugs -- nine if you count the numbing spray they give you before the needle -- plus two required and four optional drugs to take home at the end of the day. This free-ranging, all-organic, whole-foods body didn't know what hit it. Actually I think all my clean livin' stood me in good stead, because these drugs can and often do have some gnarly side effects, and I hardly felt them. I was at the hospital almost nine hours. I slept through about a third of the treatment and spent the rest reading. The day after chemo I was a little queasy and a little catatonic, but today I feel almost normal.

I do have to say I'm impressed by the toxicity of the stuff. When the nurse administered the chemo she wore an extra gown over her scrubs, along with her gloves and mask (and I got a gown over my jammies). When you pee you have to flush twice, because they don't want anybody else accidentally coming into contact with the toxins on their way out, even diluted with urine. If you dribble pee on your clothes you have to take them off and wash them twice. These are some bad-ass drugs. Of course the environmentalist in me notices right away that all this toxic pee is going straight into the river. As they used to say on the Sopranos, whaddyagonnado?

1 comment:

  1. Thinking of you, lest you think no one's reading these things! Hope this past Thursday went as well as the first Thursday did. Naturally, I'm wanting this to be nice and polite and well-behaved, and to GO. AWAY.

    --Cuz Ruth

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