2nd chemo treatment

I thought since I was only getting one infusion this week, it shouldn't be so hard.  Boy, was I wrong! My second round of chemo was tough.  We were at the hospital from 9:00-2:00.  I was still very much sore from the port surgery.  This was the first time, I'd be using the port to draw blood and for treatment.  Since the port placement was very recent, the wound wasn't fully healed.  I was simply in a lot of pain.

I was assigned to infusion room number 5 this week.  I was settling in and Nova, the hospital social worker, came by to talk to us.  She had popped in last week but I wasn't in any shape to talk to her.  She wanted to come by early and talk before the medication kicked in.  She wanted to know a little bit about our family, our support system, how we were coping with things, etc. 

While we were conversing, nurse Gail, was preparing for my treatment.  I reminded her of my reaction from last week.  She was aware and was going forward with giving me pre-medicine before treatment.  I was given my steroid medicine orally.  The Benadryl and Pepcid were administered through the IV.  During the last push of the Benadryl, I felt a huge rush and had to gasp for air. There was a tickle in the back of my throat and I did not feeling well.  I started having similar symptoms but milder than the week before  I started feeling cold and had a very hard time focusing.  I was not able to talk without slurring and my heart rate spiked.  Other nurses came running in and everyone was monitoring me.  Nova was asking me to do deep breathing techniques to help with the heart rate as they were trying to figure out what was going on.  They suspect that the dosage of Benadryl (50ml) was too much for me.  Next week's plan is to slow drip the Benadryl through my IV. They will look into reducing the Benadryl dosage later but for now we need to keep the dosage since I had a reaction to the Hercepton.

Since this second treatment, my head has been in a fog.  I'm physically here but mentally I'm somewhere in outer space.  The feeling comes and goes.  I've been told I have chemo brain!  :(  It is the most bizarre feeling and very difficult to explain because it happens sporadically. On the plus side, I have not been able to feel the lump!  It has been a tough two weeks of treatment but if I'm able to feel the positive effect, perhaps it will all work out!  I remain hopeful!