As Christine posted yesterday, I fell asleep during Chemo at about 4pm on the day of the first treatment (Wednesday). From that point forward Christine tells me that I was never really awake until for more than about 20-30 minutes at a time between then and when we went to bed at 10.

At 6am Nurse Stine woke me up to have me take my pills and have some food. The two medicines that I have been prescribed at this point are both antimetics  (used to treat and prevent nausea and vomiting). Twice a day for the first two days after chemo I’ll be taking dexamethasone. It’s a steroid used to treat a number of ailments, but it’s also pretty good at shutting down the vomiting center in the brain. On top that I have a prescription for Prochlorperazin, this is an additional “take as needed” for nausea. After a light breakfast in bed to go along with my “take with food” pills, I slept until about 11:30. So I think it’s pretty fair to say that I slept from 4pm – 11:30am. Good Game, Chemo! Good Game!

I’m writing this about 2:30 in the afternoon on Thursday and so far I have no problems or adverse reactions to the chemo. This is to be expected from what I understand, and that first day is generally a good day. The cancer cells are under attack and my symptoms are just about gone again. On top of that I haven’t experienced any nausea or discomfort yet, though we are by no means out of the woods yet.

The only side effects I do have right now are from the pills controlling the nausea and possibly from the chemo itself. A general cloudiness and slight emotional numbness. Just sort of that “I don’t feel like myself like of way.” But the feeling is minor, and if it is between this feeling or being nauseous all of the time, for now I’m picking this. Physically I feel little weak, but not to the point that I need help with anything (though its nice to have!). I notice that my hands are pretty shaky while I’m typing this, and I’m not really great at walking in a straight line from place to place when I’m walking. I’m not really walking slowly, but when I do, I don’t always wind up at the point that I was aiming for in the step in front of me. I sort amble like I were a little buzzed. But all in all, I really don’t have anything to complain about yet.

I haven’t really talked much about Chemotherapy  yet, mostly because I’m just learning myself. I’m on a cocktail of 4 drugs that are given intravenously every two weeks. Each drug does something different and goes about finding and attacking cells a little differently.  Once “cycle” of chemotherapy is 4 weeks. So Wednesday I was given dose 1A, then in two weeks I’ll be given (i think) an identical dose, dose 1B. Before the next cycle (cycle 2) starts we’ll be meeting the oncologist again, and she’s decide at that point whether to adjust the meds at all.

As for how chemotherapy works, I really only have a basic understanding   I have mentioned on several occasions that most of the cancer tests (like PET Scan) take advantage of the fact that cancer cells are highly metabolic and can multiply up to 20 times faster than normal cells in the body. Most of the chemotherapy drugs also take advantage of this and are designed to seek out and destroy quickly dividing cells. I could be wrong, but I think at its simplest level the drugs attack any cell that is dividing at that moment. And that by playing the odds, if it’s dividing, it is more likely to be a cancer cell than not. From what we were told on Wednesday, one of the drugs is actually some kind of “bio-marker” which tags certain cells and encourages the bodies natural immune systems to attack these cells.

The downside of this “scorched earth” style of chemical warfare is that the majority of the other systems your body take a hit as well, but its more devastating to the cancer cells and tumors. The systems within the body that are most notably effected are not surprisingly those systems which have higher rate of cellular turnover. Most parts of the digestive system: mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines. The skin, and fingernails/toe nails. And of course the hair follicles. This leaves most cancer patients which rough, splotchy skin, no hair, miss-colored fingernails, and they are a little nauseous most of the time.

So the idea is hit you hard one day, then your body spends the next two weeks recovering. Then you hit you again. You take two steps forward, then one step back. And that hopefully which each step back, we’re killing more cancer cells than anything else, and that eventually the body will win this battle of attrition. But based on how I feel at the moment, for the sake of timing, I might just hang the “Mission Accomplished” flag above the couch now.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to wrap this up. Apparently Dr. Stine and I are still getting use to this whole “cancer patient and nurse” dynamic here, and after some miss-communication I may or may not have taken two of the pills that I was supposed to take one of. We called the pharmacist, and while it’s no big deal, I need to get this post all wrapped-up for tomorrow, because apparently I’m about take a little nap now!

Have a good weekend everyone! Check back on Monday to see if whether or not we were able stave off the nausea this weekend!