OVARIAN CANCER
Chocolate, champagne and chemotherapy
September 18, 2009
Denise Holtby
SPECIAL TO HEALTHZONE.CA
It’s been a week since my first chemotherapy treatment and frankly, I’m relieved that it’s over. I’d been dreading that first treatment for weeks, especially after everything I’d heard about the nausea and vomiting that some people experience.
In my mind, I’d been envisioning something like the “Mr. Creosote” scene in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. In other words, I expected to be spewing stomach contents for days on end.
But lo and behold, the chemotherapy treatment wasn’t as bad as I expected and the nausea was well controlled by a combination of three antiemetic (anti-nausea) medications.
The day started with an early arrival at our local hospital. My husband Dean accompanied me and we went through the usual registration and show-us-your-health-card routine.
Like a twisted game of musical chairs, there weren’t enough seats for the number of patients and companions, so Dean and I stood, because we seemed the healthiest and youngest in the crowd by about 30 years.
Standing right across from the registration desk, we couldn’t help but notice that tensions seemed to be high that morning. The clinic nurse and receptionist had several snippy exchanges that, try as I might, I couldn’t hear clearly.
After a short wait, Dean and I were given seats in the chemo room so that we could watch a 10-year-old VHS video on chemotherapy.
This particular hospital opened about 20 years ago and I don’t think the colour scheme has been updated since, so I found the atmosphere a little bleak. The uncomfortable chairs were clad in pink vinyl, while the walls of the room were painted a Miami-Vice-green.
Some new paint and posters — and maybe some new upholstery — would make a world of difference to those of us who have to sit there for six hours or more at a time. Maybe the staff would be less snippy if the environment were more cheerful, too?
Once we’d watched the video, a nurse came in to take my blood. Two weeks before, I’d had a minor day surgery to have a port-a-cath inserted just under my collarbone on my left side.
The port-a-cath, or port, is a small titanium cup with a silicone top. One of my veins has been cut and the port’s two leads have been inserted into each side of the vein so that the blood flows through the vein, then through the port, then back into the other side of the vein. This way, blood can be taken or IV drugs administered without the need to find a vein each time.
The port surgery had gone well, but the nurse quickly realized there was a problem – it had turned over somehow and now the titanium side was facing up instead of the soft silicone side. The solution? Try to flip the thing over. It took a couple of minutes of trying – which I spent with my head turned so I didn’t have to watch – to get it properly positioned. Once that was done, we were ready to go.
The chemo treatment consisted of an antiemetic medication called Zofran, followed by a sedative and a steroid. This was all over rather quickly and things seemed to be moving along nicely. But then came the paclitaxel. That took four hours to drip from the IV bag into my port. I barely noticed, because I was dozing thanks to the sedative, but my poor husband Dean, who is not the kind of person who likes to sit still, was bored out of his mind. After four hours of paclitaxel, the bag was switched to carbplaten, another chemo drug. This one took another hour.
By the time we left the building, other than feeling sleepy, I was fine. I took the anti-nausea meds as scheduled and felt no serious side effects. However, about midnight that night, I was running a fever and had to take Tylenol to bring it down. By the next day, the fever was gone but had been replaced by a full body ache. Everything – hands, feet, knees, shoulders, hips -- hurt.
This lasted for four days. What was especially difficult was not knowing whether this was a temporary reaction or something I was going to have to live with for the next few months.
So, as in other times of trouble in my life, I turned to chocolate. For several days, the only things that tasted good to me were Snickers chocolate bars and the homemade organic soups prepared by my mother and sister. An odd combination, I admit, but they got me through the worst days.
This past weekend, we set up a hot tub in the backyard with the help of some good friends. It was Labour Day and perfect weather for accomplishing a task like that. We spent hours in the yard, laughing, eating take-out and sipping cold beverages and the work seemed like play. By the end of the day, we built a fire and I had my first float in my new hot tub. I hope that by keeping it warm, rather than hot, I’ll find it therapeutic after the next bout of chemo in two weeks.
All day long that day, my friend Cathy and I had been saying that we’d celebrate the end of summer, the start of school and the launch of the hot tub with a glass of champagne. Unfortunately, by the time everything was cleaned up and order was restored to our backyard, it seemed too late to be cracking open a new bottle.
But I still couldn’t get the idea of celebrating the occasion with a glass of champagne out of my head. So here I sit at 3 a.m., fluted champagne glass in hand, toasting what has been the best weekend since my diagnosis eight weeks ago.
So here’s to living a good life with cancer… Cheers!
Waking up to Stage IV ovarian cancer
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