First week of Chemo & Radiation

So far so good. All I have noticed so far is slight nausea in the morning. Many of the side effects will be cumulative though, so I anticipate more problems in the coming weeks.

My concerns over Blizz (the cat) were true. He likes to sit on my lap when I work on the computer. I had sat down without a shirt, and he bit into the piece that goes into the port. I managed to get him to release without causing any damage to either the port or the cat. LOL. Now I know that I have to wear a shirt at all times around the house. I have had no problems with either cat while I sleep. I have a shirt on and I am under the covers.

The pump makes noise every time it pumps. It is not really bothersome other than when it is time to go to sleep. Ear plugs made no difference, so I put on ear muffs that you wear when target shooting and that silenced it up real good. So I get to sleep with the huge ear muffs for the next 6 weeks, oops, now 5 weeks!

Taking a shower is a bit of a challenge since I cannot get the fanny pack with the chemo and the pump wet, nor do they want me to get the area with the port and bandage wet. I put  a bar above the shower curtain rod and attached a carabineer to it. This has worked very well. I went into Greatland to have them put a 60” extension on the pump. This has made it way easier to maneuver around the shower, and extended my range when I have the fanny pack off. I also tried Glad Press-n-Seal wrap last night for my shower (to cover the port and bandage) which seemed to work pretty good. It sticks to your skin better than a person would think.  It is much less hassle than using regular saran wrap and tape.  

The radiation treatments go pretty quick. I put on my gown, go into the treatment room, lay face down on the belly board,  the techs position me, and then they head out of the room. I am getting about 5 seconds of radiation aimed at 3 different locations. Since I am face down, I am not entirely sure what is going on while it is running. I do know that I do not go ‘into’ the machine, like in a CAT scan, etc… It slides me forward towards the machine and then I am pretty sure that it rotates around to the area that needs to be radiated. 

Been biking more lately, bottom has been feeling pretty good. The radiation is suppose to ‘sunburn’ my butt crack, so biking will have to be put on hold again once that happens.