Thursday, December 31, 2020

First Chemo Treatment







 The first chemo treatment was pretty rough.  The Monday after treatment I started feeling pretty crappy and it went downhill from there with pain, uncomfortable, nausea etc.  Wednesday I finally went to the er.  Since it was the day before thanksgiving there were no doctors around and not many people could help out.  They gave me 2 options, first was to be given pain meds and go home.  Second was to admit me to the U hospital where I really couldn’t get treatment for the chemo side effects.  I choose to go home and try and spend thanksgiving with my family.  Thanksgiving day was pretty tough too.  Fatigued, in pain, nausea etc.  We started having a delicious thanksgiving feast around 3:00 ish.  Unfortunately I took a couple of bites and couldn’t keep it down.  Again everything went downhill from there and I went back to the ER.  This time they offered to admit me to Huntsman which I thought was the right thing to do so I did.  The nurse took great care of me in the hospital.  While there we learned I had C-Dif which is a bacterial infection and not very fun to deal with on its own let alone with cancer.  We don’t know if this was from chemo or somewhere else but I just finished up on my antibiotics for this.  The doctor also thought I had a hepatic fever which is a side effect from chemo and low white blood cells.  I was in the hospital until Monday to take care off some of these items.  The C-Dif would go away with the antibiotics.  Low white blood cells needed to increase on there often and they needed to be satisfied with the no more fever.  I was able to do that by Monday so I went home.  While in the hospital they taught me about pain management, some physical therapy stuff and if I feel crappy to call and talk to someone, not to push through it.  I came home November 30th.  Dr. Grossman that week was talking about how to make me comfortable at home and feel good.  Obviously that is bad news and feels like terminal.  He didn’t come out and say that but that was clearly what was meant.