So as I promised, it wasn’t the best day. I had met a lady named Susan on my day 8 Gemcitabine last time, and again Wednesday night when I saw Dr Kelleher about my blood results. She is really nice but much older and going through breast cancer for the first time. I knew she was having ‘the red devil’ as it’s called but never saw her having it, until Friday.
All our treatment has temporarily been at the hospital while they’ve been redoing the chemo unit at the cancer centre. So somehow we were in the same room Friday, cramped together. And I saw the oncology nurses push the two syringes of the red stuff into Susan and then I just lost it. I mean, I tried really hard to keep it together but that stuff…and I saw her turn a different colour and it just brought it all back to me as if it was me sitting there having it infused into me.
The chemo I’m on is so much more gentler, works in a different way etc. The red stuff was toxic, and in my opinion messed my life up for a year and my Cancer STILL came back…
I couldn’t stop crying to they moved me to my own room, and I heard something about they ‘matched us incorrectly’. Well no crap right?? Why would I want to see that? And goodness why would Susan want to see someone whose had a recurrence? Seems really silly…
Anyways I’m okay from Friday. Super super tired but I have some new meds to help me, once of which is a gel that I can swish around that coats my mouth sores and allows me to eat properly. I’m also on antibiotic but one that’s not so harsh on me. Elliott has been really helpful this time. I slept most of this morning, just resting. He’s going away this week until Thursday but I think I’ll be okay. Then hopefully I can stay on track and have Gemcitabine on Friday. Then it will really be just one more round of chemo.
I have felt a bit more down, but that’s because it hit me that I’ve just had my 10th chemotherapy. Gosh, I never thought I’d be in to the double-digits you know? It’s a pretty sobering experience….