Last chemo session, I can't believe I've made it.
I practically skip into the cancer centre...practically, but not actually!
I think about the day ahead, the waiting, the tests, The Chair (with supposed flip back action, remote control television, special call button and attachable light...usually most if not all of these added extra features are broken!), the final session of Docetaxol and the PICC line.....
I anxiously ask the nurse if it is possible to get it removed today. I want it taken out but a little part of me has grown so attached to it, I worry that when they take it out it will just be my poor, skinny, misbehaving veins for the taking, the nurses eyeing them expectantly.... subtext - If i didn't have a fear of needles before, I now have a well established hate of them.
Anyway I'm nervous about getting my PICC out. I remember getting it in....and wow was that an unpleasant experience. I wonder if having it taken out will be as bad.
The consultant sees me. Well that's not exactly true. The consultant's skivvy....a junior doctor... sees me. It's a different one...a different one to all the previous ones who I've seen. Anyone ever get the distinct impression that they are on a conveyor belt? I only got a special appearance from the consultant for the first session of my chemo, the rest of the time I got to see the juniors...dont get me wrong they were all ok but from time to time I would have to remind them of facts from my file....like the fact that I had emergency surgery for an infected implant...when she asked me if my week had been eventful....i count that as pretty eventful. (post script...please read your patients files before administering medical advice...)
Anyway we go through the usual and then she writes me a note for my GP for a perscription for Tamoxifen, not Herceptin...woo hoo, little bit of good news and she sends me on my merry way.
I'm sitting there on the couch and am like...is that it?
Is this it?
Are we done?
Yup, she says, we will see you in three months, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out...
Well, she didn't actually say that but as good as....I felt like I was wondering off into the sunset, in the middle of the Gobi desert, naked...and completely unsupervised...just imagine the sunburn you would have the following day.......
Anyway in the waiting room for The Chair I get chatting to this woman with lovely hair, well, a lovely wig that looks like hair, it really suited her. Half way through the conversation she announces that she is feeling very hot and akin to Samantha from Sex and the City, she, mid hot flush, whips off her wig. I smile at her audacity. She tells me all about her diagnosis and her 'cancer journey', as if this thing that we share does away with all social barriers and you suddenly find yourself telling really personal things to other people, mainly women, who have gone before or come after on the steps of the cancer ladder. This special club or group is at times overpowering and empowering. The whole 'journey' feels akin to climbing Mount Everest and when you get to the top, when you think you have done the worst bit, I have to admit, the descent looks damn scarey too.
Anyway this vivacious lady, with no hair, her wig on her lap, which she strokes periodically, tells me about the time when she started chemo, when her hair fell out and when she went blind. (ya, you read right...when she went blind).
She had decided to do away with the remaining whisps of her hair, denial had sustained her most of the way but when she confronted herself in the mirror there really was no hiding from the fact that her hair was going, going, gone. So she took matters in to her own hands and shaved the remainder of it off. A few days later, post second chemo treatment, she slipped her hat on to her head at night time and turned off the light for her sleep. The next morning, she woke and in a blaze of panic realised that the second chemo treatment had caused her to go blind. Her heart was in her mouth and loosing the plot, post sleep, she began to shout for her husband,
'I've gone blind, I've gone blind', she sobbed uncontrollably.
He, in his wisdom, reached across and pulled the hat, which had fallen down over her eyes in the middle of the night, back up to her forehead. Blinking, she looked around her, as if seeing for the first time. Her heart rate slowed down and she smiled sheepishly at her husband.
When she told me that story I couldn't help but laugh and we both had a good giggle before ....The Chair. Maybe that is what its all about, going to a place where youre momentarily blinded, sidetracked but then a little ray of light gets you back on track.
I see the light alright, when the drugs hit my system I felt the haze of sleepiness and impatience to be gone from this place of unwellness. I fall asleep, thankfully, as it got me through the excrutiatingly slow hour where they pump the toxins in.
As a prize for my overall good behaviour at the end, the nurse tells me that I can have my PICC line out. A mixture of excitement and dread washes over me. I get my stuff together and stand up to leave, I wonder if I can remember the way back to the PICC service offices and fear that I would have to ask one of the nurses. I begin to get anxious, imagining the impending discomfort.
The nurse tells me that they do the line for me, there and then. I go back to my seat and sit down and look around me, there are at least ten other people in the room having treatment and Im worried that I will say a bad word when she comes to take it out, what if i start to cry, or bleed all over the place. I feel totally exposed. The nurse approaches, gloves at the ready, I steel myself for the pain.
WHOOOOOosssssssshhhhhh. Five seconds and it's out, no blood splatter, not that much discomfort, just a very strange sensation and it's all over. Bye bye PICC my friend. Thanks for all your help.
Bye bye cancer treatement centre, session six over and done with. Bye bye consultant and treatement nurses. Bye bye free tea and coffee and chocolate biscuit stand. Bye bye kranky receptionist.
If i had the energy I would skip from the place but right now I just want to get home and get to bed and get through the next seven days of discomfort and then, maybe then I will feel like the journey is half over.
Mount Everest, I have you climbed.....partially.
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