Crushed it at Chemo 1!

OK, I am stealing the term “Crush it” from my friend Jenn – as I loved when I received her message saying – “Crush it at Chemo”!  We arrived at the UCLA oncology office yesterday for our appointment at 8:00am and left around 3:00pm.  We had a sweet and efficient nurse who made good use of my “power port”, giving me infusion after infusion.  I am including a picture so that you can see it isn’t so scary in the chemo room (or as I think they like to call it - the infusion room – sounds like a chic London bar don't you think - “The Infusion Room”)!  

See my power port at work?

Chris was a great support throughout the day – especially in the preparation of a bucket of ice water to put my toes in during one of my infusions (the drug Taxotere can cause nail problems, so the theory is that by putting hands and feet in ice water during the infusion, it helps reduce the impact on nails).   To transport our ice we bought a turquoise and pink ice chest with seashells on it (all that was available at CVS the night before chemo!).  So you can imagine how cute Chris looked carrying in our pink and turquoise seashell ice chest (A “Playmate” for those of you from the US!), accompanying bucket for my ice water dip and a big blue UC EAP bag full of snacks, phone chargers etc.).   We had a good laugh about our looking as though we were arriving for a picnic in the chemo room.

Happily everything went well with my chemo on Tuesday and I had no immediate problems or drug reactions.  We went back in today for my neulasta injection (which helps keep the white blood cell count high).   I am including a photo of us leaving our first chemo experience today with smiles on our faces, feeling grateful to have chemo 1 down with just 5 more to go.  We are now settling back into Santa Barbara.  

As an aside, I mentioned in my previous blog post, that we have purchased a juicer!  Bring on the green juice we say!  You can see Chris here with our lovely new machine.  He is already an expert with it and as you can see, it does indeed make some tasty green juice!  Be warned, if you come to visit you may well be offered some of the green juice…

Finally, I want to thank everyone for the sweet messages you have been sending us – especially yesterday during my first chemo.  The smiles and laughter are so appreciated, and really do fill me with happiness and positivity!