CHEMOTHERAPY-DAY ONE

I started chemotherapy to shrink the tumor at the junction of my stomach and esophagus. I was glad that Phil and Kim were there with me while I was connected to the various IV fluids. One of the drugs they gave me required me to be very well hydrated, so I started by taking in lots of fluids from the IV which goes via a needle into the port in my chest. I also drank about a gallon of water. I had to pee. When I dragged my tubes and IV pole across the small room, Phil got caught up in the tubing and accidentally pulled the needle out of my chest. Gitty, my fantastic nurse, was furious with Phil and shot him mean looks for the next hour. Luckily, she replaced the needle and the new set up worked better than the original. She and Phil made up. Not much later, we were trying to take a photo of all the water I was drinking and we knocked all the water over everything in the room. Thankfully Gitty wasn't there. It was a long day, but it was kind of fun. I'm on three different drugs to kill the cancer cells and two others that will help with the side effects. One of the drugs has to be pumped into me 24 hours a day, which requires me to wear a fanny pack with a pump that goes to my port (more on this in a later post). Afterwards, Phil and I watched American Idol and ate my new favorite ice cream, from Three Twins.