Chemotherapy is Weird

I knew chemotherapy would not be fun. Everybody knows that. 

But I didn't know how bizarre it would be. Until my first treatment. 

First, a few stats: 

    Total time for treatment #1: 10.5 hours

    Total medications put into my body: 12

    Total allergic reactions: 1 

    Total percentage of time feeling terrified: 100% 

I arrived at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute early in the morning, prepped for ... well, for what? 

I knew there would be nausea. I knew there would be needles and infusion machines and syringes. I knew there would be fatigue.  

I didn't know I'd get a bright, red drug with the name "Red Devil." I didn't know I would shake violently when one of the drugs dripped into my veins. I didn't know I would freeze, unable to be warmed - on a 90-degree August day - by four heated blankets. I didn't know there would be a medication that has to be carefully measured because a person can only receive a lifetime maximum dosage. 

I didn't know there would be warning labels with words like "cytotoxic" and "danger." Nor did I know  nurses would dress in the medical equivalent of HAZMAT suits, triple-gloved, double-masked, and gowned from head to toe. They explained they had to be careful in case any of the drugs got on their skin. I said, "You mean these drugs you are pumping into my body?" 

The kind, reassuring nurse laughed and said, "Yes. It's basically poison." 

Okey-dokey. 

Weirdly, I was okay with that, reasoning that poison is needed to kill cancer cells.   Of course, it kills other cells too. But like Scarlett O'Hara, I'll think about that tomorrow.  

    

Lympho-What?

 What's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this? 

That thought has been spinning in my mind since May 2022. Spinning while I sit in medical centers waiting for scans and biopsies. Spinning while I sit in hospital rooms awaiting surgery to have a port placed in my chest for chemotherapy. Spinning while I go to endless doctor appointments at nondescript places with beige rooms and pleasant pictures on the walls. 

I'd never worried much about cancer. My world was cracked loose three years ago when my vegetarian, non-smoking, marathon-running brother died of lung cancer. But I figured that was an anomaly. Cancer didn't run in our family. 

The only problem is nobody told cancer that. 

I was hiking one beautiful May day and took a tumble. I broke a couple of ribs, sprained my wrist, and gashed my knee. It was embarrassing and painful, but I figured a trip to Urgent Care would fix me up. And it did. 

A week later, I went to my doctor to have the stitches in my knee removed. As part of my follow-up, she did a chest x-ray, even while saying chest x-rays usually don't show broken ribs. 

She was right. The chest x-ray didn't show my two broken ribs. They were discovered later. But it did show a mass in my lung. 

The tests began. Painful, nerve-wracking tests. CT scans. Biopsies. PET scans. X-rays.  

The final diagnosis: Diffuse Large B Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. 

Such a long name, but somehow it sounds better than Cancer. Even though that's exactly what it is. 

Let the games begin.