Day One And I'm Already On The Bottle

Day One of Chemotherapy at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre!

Got up early this morning and got ready to go; felt like I was getting ready for the first day of school or maybe even going camping.  Noelle has taken this week off of work to hang out with me and get me to and from the centre.  So big thank you to Noelle.  I know this has been a lot to take on, once again proving how amazing she is.  Parking is a real bugger at the Foothills Hospital and can get really expensive, so being really cheap means we also get a nice morning walk.

So the first thing to do every morning is to check myself into day care.  This seems to fit with my childlike regression from yesterday.  After checking in I get to sit in the waiting room till they call me.  Once again I note all the different people that are here all at various stages of treatment.  Kinda gives me a sinking feeling when I see some of the people who have been doing chemo now for a while but soon enough a nurse calls my name and off to day care I go.

 Now my attending nurse today was Nicole; a very nice lady who tells me she has been doing this for just over a year.  She really seems to know her stuff and is quick to get me set up and go over the days events with me.  Step one was to hydrate me with a potassium and magnesium solution followed by some anti-nauesiating drugs followed by chemo drug #1: Etoposide.  Then a round of Cisplatin.  Then they gave me another round of the anti-nauesiating drugs.  The final step was to hook me up to a bottle of Bleomycin which will stay connected to me until tomorrow's return.  Once they got me on the bottle they ran through some simple instructions and sent me home.

So day one was relatively uneventful which in my books is a good thing.  I do have to put out a thanks to my friend Jen who was able to make it possible for me to stay connected today.  Jen you so rock!  A big hug to Noelle who doesn't mind hanging out with someone who still goes to day care.  Also a really big applause to the team at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

I must also say that the day care has a nice set up and as you can see from my pictures a really good view.  It's also really cool that they have several volunteers there that go around serving Tim Hortons coffee all day. That might just explain the 12 trips to the washroom though.


Tomorrow I'm back to the Centre for 11am and don't anticipate much happening between now and then.  From what I've read I don't really think I'll suffer from too many side effects.  Till then thank you all for your support and as always love you all!

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