Yesterday, I completed Round 5 of chemo and I officially have 2 treatments left! I was back in lucky chair 13, and had no neighbors so it was pretty chill and quiet. I rocked a cute headband - teddy bear this time, and my nurse was a fan. I got a nice little nap in, and treatment went pretty quickly.

Each of the drugs I get has its own time it takes, and they have to go one after the other. When I first arrive, I take a handful of pills - mostly the ones I’m given to manage nausea at home, but I think there’s others that are meant to help with my kidneys and maybe potassium as well.

Then, I get a drip of Emend, which is also to prevent nausea and cause relaxation. It takes about a half hour. Next is the red devil, which is a “push“ drug - it doesn’t go in an IV bag and has to be manually pushed through my picc line. Next is another of the chemo drugs, a drip, which goes for 10 minutes. Then, I get my final chemo drip which takes an hour. Lastly is the immunotherapy drug, which helps my healthy cells to identify and fight the cancer cells. It takes a half hour and then I’m all done!

When things go smoothly, like they did yesterday, I can be in and out of treatment in under 3 hours. Sometimes if it’s busier or my blood is stubborn (they have to get blood return from both lumen, like I mentioned in my last post), it can extend the whole process. But, I was lucky to be home and resting before noon.

I had my picc line dressing change earlier this week. I was grateful that there were no issues this time so the process was very quick. I got a very sweet compliment from the nurse doing the dressing change. He said that he really likes my positive attitude. I mentioned that my mom had gone through breast cancer 5 years ago and also kept up her positive attitude throughout, and she felt it really helped with her healing and processing of everything. We talked about how its not always easy, and it is understandable when others may not have the same outlook or attitude. But it felt really nice to be complimented for being myself.

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In practice of gratitude and positivity, here are some things that made me happy this past week: