Before I found myself immersed in this strange new world of cancer and possible treatments, I had quite a preconceived idea of chemotherapy.

I assumed it was brutal and completely debilitating – largely based on personal stories of people that I have known who went through chemo many years ago.

I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that chemo is actually very individual and there are a whole host of different treatment combinations based on the type of cancer someone has.

And although the possible side effects are long and scary and it comes with a lot of risk, there is so much that can be done to mitigate and treat the side effects.  The hospital have been amazing at sharing information and making sure I know what to do and who to call if I need anything and I’m feeling very supported and assured by that.

My treatment is 3 weekly cycles of an infusion at the chemo day centre at the very fabulous Velindre Cancer Hospital and 4 tablets that I take every day at home.

I don’t need to have PICC line – that’s where they insert a line and it stays in you for the duration of your treatment.    In my case chemo is given into a cannula that is inserted on the day and then taken out when it’s done.  I’m taking this as a huge win as I was worried about how I would manage living with a PICC line.  I know I would have adapted, but it’s one less thing to worry about and that’s definitely something to celebrate.

I’m also very lucky that hair loss isn’t a side effect of my combination of drugs so I don’t have to make decisions about cold caps and try to deal with what seems to be a very painful experience.

First day of treatment – the chemo infusion

I went along to the day centre yesterday for my first day of treatment.   To say that I was a little scared and apprehensive would be an understatement of the year.   It didn’t help that it was a 9.00 am start.    I’m not really a morning person and the thought of getting up super early and getting to an appointment by 9.00 am with typical rush hour traffic and possible hold ups all added to first day nerves.

I had arranged hospital transport to pick me as it’s not suggested driving yourself for your first treatment.  Also I’m the world’s biggest wimp when it comes to driving, I don’t do motorways if I can help it, especially not in rush hour, especially when I’m already a bag of nerves !   Hospital transport was great – I had a pleasant chat with the other passenger and it helped to distract me and take my mind off my nerves which was just what I needed.   Then family met me at the hospital to pick me after treatment.

Next time, I know what to expect so I won’t have any of those first day worries and anxiety and my appointment is 11.00 am so no early morning rush hour worries either !

Walking into the day centre unit was I have to admit totally overwhelming and the emotion hit me a lot more than I expected.   It must have been obvious I was a newbie on my first day – I’m sure the weak, teary smile and look of anxiety gave the game away, despite me trying my best to hide it.   A quick trip to the loo and some calming deep breaths to compose myself, I walked back out to be greeted by a lovely nurse who put me at ease straightaway.

So I sat in my chair and they checked my hand for a suitable vein.   I’m quite small and therefore my veins are quite small too and at 9.00 am in the morning I wasn’t massively hydrated.   So I had to sit with my hand in a warm bucket of water for a while to get my veins to show up.

Note to self and top tip they gave me – drink lots of water the day before chemo and in the morning.

I was given lots of tablets to take – steroids and anti sickness medications and then once the canula was all set up and tested, they started the chemo.    The infusion only takes 30 minutes and was painless, they keep an eye on you to make sure there are no problems and you sit back and relax until it’s done.

One brave lady was having some kind of foot massage – personally I don’t really do feet.  The thought of some strange, albeit lovely person getting acquainted with my toes doesn’t really do it for me.  Not least because my feet are usually fairly cold and also extremely ticklish so I prefer to keep them well wrapped up in woolly socks and hidden from the wider world !  At least from Autumn to spring !   In summer it’s flip flops all day every day!

Another brave lady was wearing a cold cap and I just wanted to go and hi-five her and tell her how much I admired her and to wish her well.

Once the drip was finished and they took out the cannula you couldn’t tell I’d just had chemo.  Just the same red mark you get after any kind of blood test.   I did have some pain/tenderness in my vein afterwards which I asked the nurse about before leaving – she checked my arm and told me all was fine – it may because I have little veins, it was quite a fast infusion and next time they’ll give me a heat blanket to keep my arm warmer.       The tenderness lasted intermittently throughout the day and into the night, usually if I touched my arm, but today it’s all fine.

Taking the chemo tablets

The chemo tablets have to be taken within 12 hour intervals, 30 minutes after food.   It’s been a bit of a military exercise to sit and plot out how to fit them in around other tablets that I take that also have time restrictions on food.   Some can’t be taken within 2 hours of taking another tablet and I ended up having to write out a schedule to try and plan everything out.    I now have a squillion reminders on my phone to have a snack, take tablet, rinse and repeat.    I’m sure it won’t take long to get into a routine and it will just become a normal part of my day, but for now it all feels new and strange.

Swallowing is a problem for me – I am pretty much on a soft food diet, but I can still manage to take some tablets.   The ones I have are pretty big – a little bigger than a paracetamol.      The hospital gave me instructions on how to dissolve them in case I find them too hard to swallow and warned they don’t taste very nice so add some squash to help.

So when it got to the allotted time to take my tablets for the first time I was a bag of nerves !   I decided to dissolve them to take away the stress.   Except I then worried that maybe exposing my mouth to drinking them is not such a good idea as they’re incredibly toxic and a sore mouth is one of the possible side effects of my chemo treatment.   I don’t want to be making things worse for myself if I can help it !      In the end I added lots of blackcurrant squash and drank them easily.    No weird reactions afterwards, so another win for day one !

Settling in to new habits and routines

This morning, was day one of a new habit of eating something ridiculously early for me – I don’t normally eat before mid morning at the earliest – a life long habit!

I was stressed about what to eat so early, if I could swallow it and if I could swallow the tablets afterwards.    And of course, feeling stressed about swallowing, probably just makes the swallowing a whole lot worse !     I had to abandon the graze bar that I can normally eat and had a yoghurt instead !

I had decided to attempt to swallow the tablet this morning to prove to myself that I can do it.   My fitbit showed my heart rate on 135 bmp after taking them, so it’s fair too say I’d got myself a teeny bit wound up and stressed !    I managed to swallow them both with no problems (Yay!) and celebrated with a lovely cup of tea afterwards – big win for the morning and my heart rate soon went back down !

The wonderful thing about us humans is that we can adapt very quickly to things.  In a few days, I’ll be taking my tablets without a second thought and it will all just be a new normal part of my life for the foreseeable future.   And as the treatment works it’s magic, I’ll hopefully find the swallowing a lot easier, so I’m looking forward to hot buttered crumpets and jam for breakfast or toast and honey!      Who knows maybe I’ll even enjoy having breakfast 2 hours earlier than I’m used to !

So far I’m feeling fine and am celebrating lots of small wins and things not being quite as bad as I imagined they might be.  I know it’s a long road ahead, but I’m keeping everything crossed that if and when I get any side effects, they’ll all be very manageable.   In the meantime, I’m concentrating on taking things step by step and day by day, being super kind to myself and celebrating all the fabulous little things that make each day a little brighter.