More

… again they send you to the cancer center but don’t want you to worry about having cancer… is that possible?? Dusty and I jumped in the car on Friday and I had no idea what the treatment would be like… well, it is not fun… you go into the room and there are about 30-40 recliners in the room and they just tell you to choose one and they will come and hook you up… the nurse came over to start the IV (here we go again)… I told her about the small needle trick and she said that is what they use and she was able to get it in on the first try!  I was so excited… they did put a heating pad on my hand to open up the veins and to keep it open after they started all the iv fluids, etc… before the treatment started they gave me a benedryl and some Tylenol… then they hook up the fluids and a steroid… after the steroid is complete, then you have to wait 30 minutes for everything to get into your system… she explained that this was to help if there was an allergic reaction to the iron… they then do a test run of a small dose to make sure you don’t have a reaction to it… I didn’t have a reaction, so we carried on with the larger dose… she brings out a very large bag that looked like they had poured coke into it… (dark syrupy liquid)… then you have to wait 2 hours for it to drip in… dusty was by my side the entire time and helped time to go by quicker… he got me some snacks as well (they have a big set up for food/drinks for the patients…) the only bad thing was that you want to sleep really bad and can’t at first because they have to make sure that you do not have a reaction… and you have to listen to the machine the entire time… gets pretty old… it was also very sad… you are in the same room where patients are coming in and getting chemo treatments and that was hard to watch… I did meet another girl that works at Chesapeake though… small world… we have been emailing back and forth since then and she has been very encouraging… the whole process took about 4 hours!!  Had no idea it would take so long… I went straight home and fell sound asleep… (got in trouble that night because dusty was worried about me because I fell asleep so quickly and tried to call me all night, but I was with best friend and the new baby J) afterwards, I could actually tell a difference in what my skin looked like and how I was feeling… the iron is making  a difference!  I have my next appt. on Tuesday for another 4 hour treatment… here’s hoping the iron had increased my blood flow and the needle will go in again on the first try… during the week of this treatment I changed my ultrasound at the girl dr to Friday January 9 instead of the 12^th… figured it was one less weekend to have to wait…