Chemo Round 7

Yesterday August 5th was round 7 of chemo.
Appointments were a little later than usual this time. My appointment with Dr. Richert-Boe was at 10am and it only lasted about 10 minutes. She gave me hug at the end and said I am doing really good. My blood test on the labs from yesterday showed my hemoglobin to be low. The range is 12.0 to 16.0 and mine came back this time as 11.8.When I asked the Dr. about it, she said it wasn't low enough to worry about and that it actually is really good , usually at this point in the chemo process its way lower than that for most people.

Picked out my chemo chair at about 10:15am, there was a lot of people there, it was pretty busy,  got my port accessed and I sat there for what seemed like a long time. They had to order my meds(IV bags of meds) from the pharmacy. The Kaiser phone lines and computers were down most of the day, so they had to figure out by hand the medicine ratio's and that took time.
First they gave me my pre meds, the Pepcid, and the Decadron (this is for anti nausea med). Then about noon I got the benedryl. By this time, Richard was long gone ( he had started his day out at 4:30am and went to work in Portland, made a few deliveries and got home about 9:15am, took me to Kaiser and when my mom showed up about 11am, he left to go home and take a nap) while I got my Benedryl, mom went to get us some lunch, (Subway sandwich for me of course! what would lunch be without a sandwich!!) which worked out good, it gave me a chance to take a little nap/rest since the Benedryl makes me sooo tired for about 20 minutes.

Once the Benedryl was finished I got the Taxol (chemo drug) started about 1pm. Then was that was done, I got about 20 minutes of the saline, this is to clean out the port and flush it. Then I got the Herceptin.
I didn't leave Kaiser until almost 3:45pm. Seemed late, but I got a little later start than normal.

When I first get there, they give me a bracelet with  my name, date of birth and Kaiser number on it. Then when I get any of my meds, two nurses verify the IV bag information with my bracelet and ask me my name and date of birth. This way, they aren't giving meds to the wrong person. Nice they are so careful.

As for my port, not sure if i explained  how it works. Its completely under my skin on my chest and it has three points, like little bumps. Before they put the needle in, they wipe the area with alcohol and another type of cleaning solution, than they put the needle  in the center of those three points, they tape it and put a big bandage over it to keep it connected and safe.That way the needle is connected to the IV tube.

Last time my legs hurt really bad and were really restless. This time, about 8pm I could feel my legs starting to ache. It wasn't too bad last night and I didn't thrash around in bed like I did last time.
This morning I woke up feeling really good. my legs don't hurt at all, my heels always feel numb from the meds but not as bad as last time, and  not sick to my stomach. My cheeks are really flushed and red, but with a little make up, they will look fine! Not sure what tonight will bring.

only one more chemo treatment left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!