Regusci's Rags

Quilting and family; keeping life in stitches!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

In Her Own Words

So yesterday was mom's first day of Chemo and as she experienced a sleepless night she wrote her own update for the blog! So in her own words, here is Lynn:

Chemo Day 1

As a person who responds strongly to drugs I was curious about how I would handle strong chemo drugs. The administration went smoothly, short of me almost kicking the nurse during the second of pain when she inserted the IV in the port-a-cath (we now have some cream that should deaden the area for next time) . Silly me, I was thinking it was a 30 minute process – it took 2 ½ hours for them to load me up with two chemo chemicals and an anti-nausea drug (plus I had taken an anti-nausea pill that morning). Once at home I felt that I was functioning fairly well, a bit tired so I decided to take out my contact, put on my glasses, and sit and read. Reading was a little difficult because my vision was somewhat blurred (I had read earlier that this could be a side effect) so I watched TV and dozed. Tracy needed to pick up kids and I decided to ride shotgun so ran to take off my glasses & put in my contact (so I could wear my sunglasses, I know it is crazy). I found my contact case empty – my contact was still in my eye, I had been wearing glasses over it! Tracy said, “No driving for me for awhile.” Rest of the day was great, wonderful friends brought pizza, we sat outside and chatted, all was manageable. After they left I started feeling nauseas but was saved when dear Jon brought Starbucks ….. Manna from heaven. By bedtime the nauseas feeling had returned only to be brought under control with my second favorite treat….a Popsicle! During the night I had the strangest dreams…..reminded me of the types of dreams you have when you are pregnant. I had to get up a million times to go to the bathroom because of the ton of water they told me to drink. Navigation was difficult and nothing looked right, the bruise on my arm from Thursday’s IV looked like a giant bug and I didn’t realize it wasn’t until I had slapped my arm a few times. On my way to the bathroom there was this red light near the floor that I didn’t recognize so I tried to stay as far from it as possible until I realized it was the baby monitor Tracy had plugged in so she could keep tabs on me (Jamie is out-of-town). Then I spent the rest of the night trying to resist the urge to speak into the monitor, “Tracy…this is the voice of God, “etc. Now my stomach muscles feel like I threw up all night, but I didn’t at all so that is good. I know things might get a little more intense in the next day or two, but I can manage it (can others manage my goofiness)? My greatest fear is Tracy has to manage a household of eight, run the kids to various activities, and run me to appointments. I have at least one if not two appointments a day for the next 14 days – yikes! Pray for perfect children and no flat tires.

4 comments:

Candace said...

Thank you the post Lynn, its good to hear from you. My thoughts and love are with you constantly. I only wish I could be there to help. Take care...

andy gibson said...

Oh man, I am so sorry! Hang in there, you'll do great!!!

andy gibson said...

oops, it's jeannett...wrong person logged onto the computer!

Caol said...

I know that you will come through this strongly....good thing you have a strong support group....