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smrtboi2120-blog · 7 years ago

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Chemotherapy

So my aunt gave me some pointers yesterday about this blog. They included talking about my experience taking my mother to chemotherapy, which I’ll do today. Also, she suggested I keep these blogs shorter which is going to prove very difficult for me since I love writing so much, so we’ll see how that goes. And lastly she suggested I research Chemotherapy as well for this, which I’ll also do. I firmly believe in the approach of always starting with the hardest part first of any task to make the journey less arduous, so I’ll start with the research.

So I’ll just mention the information as I read about it and understand it myself. From what I understand, chemotherapy, simply put, is the process of using anti-cancer drugs to help fight the cancer and/or prolong the life of a cancer patient. Usually there is a combination of drugs involved. The drugs are given through an IV to put it directly in the bloodstream, that way it insures that the medicine is distributed across the entire body. What these drugs more or less do is inhibit cell growth or kill certain cells in a effort to kill the cancer. Unfortunately, other cells die in this process causing all the harsh side effects associated with this treatment.

The dose of the chemotherapy drugs is important because dosing too little will prove ineffective and dosing too much will make the patient sicker. So they measure the patient’s body weight to determine the proper amount.

Chemotherapy involves the depression of the immune system which means red and white blood cells drop in count. Side effects include nausea, vomiting, and weight loss, all of which I’ve witnessed first hand happen to my mother. This also means we have to try and prevent my mother from catching a cold or fever or anything like that. I imagine I’ll start to panic a little if or when that happens, but all I can do is my best.

Cancer is basically the uncontrolled growth of cells with malignant or dangerous behavior. Chemotherapy, as mentioned before, uses drugs that inhibit fast dividing cells in a effort to combat the disease.

Chemotherapy was essentially discovered from using mustard gas in WWI AND WWII, in which it was discovered that certain chemicals could effect and attack certain blood cells, so it was presumed to be a viable treatment approach to combat the nature of cancer.

That’s basically the broad overview of chemotherapy. A more detailed explanation would involve all the different deliveries of the drugs and the variety of drugs being used, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go into all of that. I think the mechanism of action is the most important thing. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

Now I’ll go into the experience of taking my mom to a chemo- treatment:

I woke up early probably because I was subconciously motivated by the fact that I knew I was going to have to take my mother to the hospital that day. I wasn’t sure what time her appointment was, but I was hoping it was early so I wouldn’t have to sit with the anxiety of it throughout the day. The appointment was at 8:30am an hour away in the area I grew up in at the hospital I was born at. I just wanted to get out and go so I believe I skipped a hearty meal, which would come back to bother me later.

I don’t remember anything significant about the drive there but luckily my anxiety really wasn’t bad at all. I think I was monitoring my anxiety a lot during the beginning so I didn’t really think of evaluating the hospital from the get-go like I had wanted to. But overall I had no complaints about the place, and was overall pleased. My mom thought the service was slower than the previous hospital she had been treated at.

Once we made it to her treatment chair/bed, I started to get settled and feel more comfortable. Part of me was shocked at the apparent simplicity of the procedure (all she had to do was sit comfortably in this chair/bed while the chemicals were intravenously delivered into her system through her arm), but part of me also wasn’t shocked because I figured at this current time in history, medical treatments would be as simplified and to-the-point/effective as possible. All the chemicals being delivered to her were ironically transparent as water. But after researching the chemicals being used in the process, you would understand the mechanism of actions of the these advanced drugs were anything but simple.

My hunger began to bother me like I mentioned before, but luckily there was coffee near us that I used to suppress my appetite since I was still too anxious to explore the hospital to get food. My mom kept urging me to go get food while she waited but I wanted to hold out as long as possible because I knew it was going to be a long day. The nurse informed us that three different liquid bags of chemicals would be dispersed into her for the entire treatment. The first bag took 30 minutes to an hour, the second bag took 3-4 hours, and the last bag took another 30 minutes to an hour. I’m assuming the drug that took the longest was the most powerful. I was astonished at the bright and happy mood my mom carried throughout the entire time, especially seeing as though she was under the use of absolutely no medication whatsoever other than the current chemo treatment that was happening to her. Whereas I struggle with my mood a lot more even with the use of certain medicines. I wish I had the type of spirit my mom does sometimes, but I always look up to her and people like her because of it. She was a very good and happy patient, I’m sure all the nurses at the hospital noticed, but maybe they’re used to it.

Eventually when I could tell my mom was getting hungry, I worked up the courage to roam and explore the hospital myself in an attempt to find this wonderful cafeteria my mom kept mentioning. Surprisingly my anxiety was held at bay and I felt relatively confident roaming alone, even when I managed to get a little lost and needed to ask for guidance a couple times. My strength could have came from being motivated to go and get my mom food, I know I definitely cared about her hunger more than mine.

Eventually I found the cafeteria and it was as cool as my mother had spoke of. But, I noticed my anxiety elevated just a tad while in the presence of more people, so I made the wise decision of not taking too much time to think about what to order and just order the first full type of meal I could see. The chicken and bacon sandwich melt was at the top of the list, so that’s what I went with, for the both of us. When I got condiments, I got barbecue sauce for myself but I had no idea what my mom would want, only that she would want something. In hindsight, I should have just went with ketchup, everyone’s typically happy with ketchup for this sort of thing. Sure enough when I brought the food back to her, she was pleased but mentioned the desire of having mayo with her because the food was on the dry side as I suspected it might be. I should note that it was much easier to find my way back to her treatment spot since my mind must have subconciously remembered all the moves I made in the first place to get there. I’m sure this is an evolutionary trait for survival despite my lack of strength in the direction department. The other foods my mom ate during this 6 hours treatment was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, red jello, milk, and apple juice all served on the house by the hospital.

The wait for me wasn’t as bad as you would think, though it did get a little trivial near the end, but nothing I would sweat. I was more worried about my sick mother more than anything. Since my phone is half-broken, I didn’t bother to bring it with me to the treatment. But my mom brought her iPad and had her iPhone, both of which I used to entertain myself while I waited. Next time I’ll remember to bring a charger though, but the first time around, the hospital was gracious enough to let us use one the hospital had. I also messaged people I’ve been close with during this process which included my friends Rosa and Lily, as well as my friend Madeline’s mom, Pam. Rosa I’m assuming was busy with work, but I was able to correspond with Lily and Pam which was really nice. I suppose there’s a lot of people I could have been in contact with during this day, but my anxiety is very tricky when it comes to these sort of things. And my OCD would become obsessed about whether or not I texted everyone or enough people in my life, so I tried to keep it simple and stuck with the close friends I talk to online, since I didn’t have my own phone anyway.

My mom used the television in our little space/room to keep herself entertained. I remember watching a lot of talk shows and remarking how insane it was the amount of talk shows there were. There was at least 3 different versions of “The View” I remember, including shows called “The Real” and “The Talk”. I don’t see how those shows weren’t copyright infringement on the View, maybe they had to pay a royalty probably. We also watched the Wendy Williams show. What my mom was really eager to find was the Ellen Degeneres show because she loves her so much. I was worried we wouldn’t find it and miss it, but eventually my mom found it just in time.

And that’s pretty much how we passed the time and how it went. I fidgeted in my chair now and then and eventually reduced myself to laying down using two chairs and my mom sat calmly and patiently basically the entire time. And the short Asian nurse would come every now and then to check on her and to switch the chemical bags. She had to put on all this protective equipment first in order to do it, but I wonder why I didn’t have to wear any protective equipment if I was next to my mom too. My mom said it was because the nurse was actually the one touching all the chemicals being dispersed into her.

Well my aunt wanted me to keep this as short as possible, so I should stop here. They took everything out of her and we quietly left the place. My mood was fine overall, but I did notice a drop at some point during the car ride home and I began to desperately want to be in the comfort of our own home. I suspect it was either the coffee crash or seeing myself in the mirror which had accidentally happened and is currently a problem for me because of my weight. But I tried my best to keep my spirits up in order to be there for my mom, whatever she needed. But she’s a strong woman and she proved it that day. Some details I’m remembering now is that the hospital was at first empty when we got there and the wait wasn’t long at all, on the eighth floor, what looked to be the highest floor of the hospital, or part we were at. By the time I had worked up the courage to venture to the cafeteria, the hospital had become a lot more populated. And lastly, they gave my mother this patch injector post-treatment to help her immune system, the drug’s called Neulasta. Apparently it stimulates the bone marrow and this causes immense pain that my mother has currently been dealing with the past few days. She had to wear the patch for 28 hours, in which at the 27th hour, the injector would disperse the medication into her system. Then I had to take the patch off myself and saw her fragile arm for the first time in a long time, which I’ll never forget.

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Excuse the choppy, unedited nature of this blog. I’m not really concerning myself with structure or quality to the upmost regard or detail since I’m primarily writing this for expression and simple documentation. I don’t need this blog to win any contests, awards, or anything, or even warrant any large attention. I’m sending this to the important people in my life anyway and that’s all that matters. So thank you for your time as always. I’ll try to improve my quality though when I’m more motivated to write.

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