Chemo

Chemo (pronounced kee-mow) is short for chemotherapy and, as the name implies, it is a therapeutic infusion of a select mixture of chemicals. This is how Carolyn's first day of chemo went down.

We got up at "0-dark thirty", a phrase I hadn't heard since my army/national guard days. But this was how the charge nurse for chemotherapy described it. In this case it is shorthand for some unholy hour before the sun gets up. After a shower, we got dressed and had a couple of soft-boiled eggs with toast. The drive to the Kaiser Morse Avenue doctors' offices and hospital was uneventful. Carolyn was supposed to check in with the Oncology secretary at 8:15 but the sign on the door said the office opens at 8:30. No problem, we figured we'd just check in with the Infusion Center.

The Infusion Center was locked but we could see someone inside. Carolyn knocked on the door. Cindy came to the door and let us in inviting Carolyn to take either seat 1 or 2.

All of the stations were equipped with a comfortable chair and, as near as we could see, the same medical equipment. This is a picture of infusion station 2 which was to be Carolyn's home for the next 6.5 hours.

Within minutes the nurse Cindy had Carolyn's arm punctured and taped ready for the medications to be given IV (intravenously).

First she was given two medications including prednisone to make sure the IV line was working and to help her tolerate the stronger solutions she would be given to attack her cancer cells. These are the stronger chemical solutions - Rituxin, Cytoxan, Vincristine, and Doxorubicin. I think I recognize at least two of those from what my mother received in chemotherapy 40 years ago. I was interested to note that each was given separately in serial fashion into Carolyn's arm.


One of the more caustic chemicals is actually manually injected into the vein. This is so the nurse can periodically reverse the flow to make sure the IV is still properly placed in a blood vein. If the needle had moved and the chemical allowed to flow into the muscle or skin area it would cause severe damage. But in the blood where it is meant to be, the damage hopefully means dead cancer cells.

Although Carolyn brought along a couple of books to read, the anti-nausea medication made her so sleepy that she slept through most of the treatment.


The last of the four chemicals she received was also given with special care. Because it causes an allergic reaction in some people, they start out the IV drip very slowly (80 ml/hr) and increasing the rate by 40 ml/hr each 30 minutes to a maximum of 320 ml/hr. This little machine monitored the rate of the infusion to insure that goal was met. That left the nurse available to check vital signs or any signs of allergic reaction.



An automated blood pressure monitor allowed the nurse to check Carolyn's blood pressure without seriously inconvenience to either one of them.

The Infusion Center is even so patient friendly that they have crackers and drinks available for the patients to snack on during their treatment.

She's now home resting. The nurses indicated that as long as she continues to take her anti-nausea medication, fatigue and sleepiness will probably be the only affects she will feel from this round of therapy. We'll see.