the beginning

We put the power port to use yesterday for my first round of chemo. I didn't feel nervous or scared until the  the nurse put the needle into the port on my chest which was 1. very painful, and 2. the precise moment I settled in to the fact that chemo was happening for real and I lost it for a few minutes. Not in a hiccup-y, disruptive way, but in a big hot, relatively quiet tears way. Jason is good at taking me out of these meltdown moments and even though I sort of hated him for talking the lyrics of "call me, maybe" at me, I squeezed his hand and we both laughed, a little choked up. He's good cancer company. Good company in general, but you know what I mean.
Things I learned about receiving chemotherapy:
1. Some folks who are getting their treatment are very loud, shouting everything they say and literally shouting out to nurses who are far away from them. This makes it difficult to relax in what is already a high-stress situation.
2. Other folks receiving their treatment do things like make long phone calls, leaving the automated phone system on speaker phone at top volume, which is a good way to ensure that other patients feel uncomfortable about their conversations.
3. The lights are fluorescent and too bright.
4. The thin screens that hang as dividers between patients' seating areas provide very little privacy. The seating areas all come in three-part sections, centered around a pole that houses the electrical outlets and televisions in each tiny section. The walls are actually two metal protrusions at the top and bottom of the pole, draped with a mesh screen with charming pictures of snowy evergreens or flip flops in sand.
5. The anti-nausea medication and one of the chemo drugs (cytoxan) are administered via iv drip. The other medication (adriamyacin) is administered by a nurse who pushes three syringes full of the vile looking red stuff into the iv. She does so in a hazmat poncho and gloves, which really makes receiving the medicine a lot more frightening.
6. Adriamyacin is charmingly nicknamed "the red devil," and when my nurse came by to give me my dose, the sweet woman sitting next to me who has just finished her round of a/c asked her husband to re-hang the flip flop we'd taken down so we could talk to one another a few minutes before.
7. I have to be careful about germs. I knew this, it's obvious. What was less obvious to me as my chemo patient neighbor explained necessary germ precautions to me, was just how little I ever trouble myself to avoid germs unless in a public bathroom.
I felt tired and mildly nauseated yesterday. Today I worked and mostly felt fine, suffering only a mild bout of nausea that was quickly remedied by vernor's and anti-nausea medication. I was, however, exhausted by the end of the day and am still really tired. Like, no joke ready for pajamas and bed kind of tired. So I think that's what I'm going to do.
Thanks for all the well-wishing. So far this red devil has nothing on me, though I suspect this won't be the case for too much longer.