Chemo 1 - Day 1
Fire and Ice. Into the brave unknown...
Jully 11, 2022. Bright eyed, masked up (eye roll), and a little apprehensive, Boaz and I roll into the Infusion lab at UCLA in Westlake and already we are quite the scene. I say "roll" in because that is exactly what we were doing. Boaz had built a dolly for his 95 liter, heavy duty, super duper, surfcamp fridge/freezer to roll in on so that we could keep all of our "cold caps" cold. As mentioned a time or two before, I am distraught about losing my hair. My rockstar husband labored diligently to work a system where we could keep ice caps on my scalp in an effort to freeze the follicles so that the chemo might not burn them. It is a process called "Cold Capping" and there are several systems out there with varying reviews and results. I've been warned that it probably won't work, but its worth it to me and so it's worth it to him -- see: rockstar! Anyway, you have to make sure the ice covers everywhere there is hair, but also you have to protect the skin that doesn't have hair so that it doesn't get frostbite. You have to change these "caps" every 20 minutes or so in order to maintain 32 degrees - that's why you need the big freezer - constantly changing ice packs and refreezing them. And you need to do this for an hour before the infusion, all during the infusion, and for 4 hours after the infusion. It is quite the production; but also quite the distraction.
I hardly had a chance to worry about what was happening with the actual infusion of the chemotheraphy. The nurses were all very nice and helpful and were good at not making us feel like the circus that we were. There were about 15 other people receiving treatment in the center that morning and no one else had a cooler or wraps or even a book or even a pal! Everyone was just sitting quietly in their small space listening to something or reading something on their device - not us! We had work to do! The nurses drew blood through my trusty new "port" to run a quick panel to know my baseline. Next, they gave me some fluids and about an hour of "pre-meds." These would help my body accept the chemotherapy medicines and help counteract some of the side effects. For the first four rounds of chemotherapy my doctor is planning on giving me Taxotere (docetaxel) and Carboplatin (paraplatin). (She had wanted to do immunotherapy in addition to chemotherapy, but I have autoimmune issues, so I am not a good candiate for immunotherapy.) After the pre meds, they start the actual infusion of the chemotherapy drugs. All of this goes in through the port in my chest and for me, I didn't even feel it. They said that I might feel a cool sensation or that I might get sleepy or tingly. But, I don't remember feeling anything - other than the freezing head of course ; ).
My doctor came in to speak with us near the end of the treatment. I think I was pretty "full of it" by then because I don't remember too much from our meeting. They unplugged me. We rewrapped my head one last time at the center. And then we loaded everything back on our dolly and rolled back out of there. When we got home we continued to wrap and rewrap my head for those four hours. The Relief Society had dinners scheduled for the entire week (they wanted to do more - but I insisted they wait - this will be a LONG journey). My family ate well, and I eventually fell asleep... It wouldn't be another day or two until I really felt the burn!