Talking about Chemo - Part 1

In this video, Jane talks with us during one of her chemo treatments.

Hi, my name is Jane. This is my third chemo treatment. I came in to the clinic this morning about 10:30 to have my lab work drawn. They look at my complete blood count every two weeks when I get my treatment and make sure I’m doing okay, and then I saw the nurse practitioner. Normally, I see my oncologist but he is at the town, so I’m just here with the nurse practitioner a little bit. She did a basic physical exam just to make sure I was still doing well, and I had my IV started and now we’re getting the first dose of medication which is some Decadron which serves they’re going to help decrease the inflammatory response that we get when they inject the actual chemo therapy drugs. So it sort of makes the treatment go a little bit smoother, and I feel better for about 24 hours afterwards until the impact of the chemotherapy drugs truly hit. Then I have some nausea. I kind of feel wipe out but that passes after a couple of days and I get back on track and get back with my normal life. How do you balance working fulltime while receiving chemo treatments? We try to take a few more breaks, give myself a little bit more time to do things and not put myself in as much stress or under a deadline pressure as I was doing and I feel that my co-workers are really, really considerate and I try to take off some of the extra pressures and things. So it’s me working a relatively easy thing to continue and oftentimes the work too is a very much of a distraction, so I’m not thinking about you know, Oh, I’ve got to go into chemo tomorrow. I’m thinking about what I’m doing right now and trying to finish this project or whatever. So I think that’s helpful anyway from a mental standpoint. What do you do while at chemo treatments? Sleeping if I passed the weekend. It’s a great opportunity just kind of kick back and relax. My husband always comes with me and we talk. Sometimes we do bonding things like make the grocery list. He brings work with him sometimes which is what I think he has done today, and he is just here for me. He brings me a cup of hot tea if I want that. Anyway it’s just the pretty calm the couple of hours really. It’s not painful. It’s not uncomfortable really. It’s just to sit still and watch the IV drip in.