Cycle #4

I had my fourth cycle of chemotherapy yesterday and it went okay. I started the day at 9:15 showing up at the clinic and taking 10 & 1/2 pills for anti-nausea, anti-inflamatories, anti-allergies, and some other stuff I don't fully understand too. That was definitely the worst part because I kept gagging every time a pill started to go down. This only started happening as of my last chemo cycle but all of a sudden I hate swallowing pills and would rather throw them up than keep them down. yucky!!

The next part was getting an IV in my arm. I had it in my right arm yesterday because I like to switch back and forth so I'm less likely to get scars. My sister and mom came with me yesterday while I was getting all these things done to me and my sister has never liked needles. I've written about her experience with giving me my shot (although she's pretty great at it now) and I haven't yet written about when I had to get blood taken but let's just say it was a stressful experience. So, after getting my IV in yesterday, my nurse started telling me why it was more difficult for young people to get IV's than old people: more collagen in the skin and more water in their bodies (making the veins slippery and easy to miss or go straight through). After explaining this to the three of us; me, my sister, and my mom; I look up at my sister and she looks like she's going to pass out so the nurses had to ask her to lie down in a chair until she felt better and then Debbie got to the clinic and my mom and sister were able to leave for the day. I'm so thankful for my sister and she has tried to support me through this whole journey but if you are trying to help someone through something please know that it's okay to help them in some areas that you're comfortable with and you don't have to help them with everything -- if you try to help them with things that are difficult to you it probably won't end up being helpful.

On that note, yesterday's cycle was about the same as usual but for some reason I completely did not want to be there, yet realizing I would definitely stay there until the end of my treatment I would just randomly start crying intermittently throughout my treatment. It was pretty awful. I had my good friends Debbie and Bekka to laugh at me and help me feel better but overall I hated being there and would rather have been anywhere else in the world. On the bright side, I'm potentially past half way!!! And if that's not something celebrate I don't know what is!