Part 5
"My First Day of Chemotherapy"

The next morning I woke up a little after 7:00am. I packed up some stuff to keep me busy through the day. I brought my CD player with about 4 CD’s, a book (Eaters of the Dead by Michael Criton), and a couple movies. We got to the hospital around 8:00am and went to my room. I got introduced to all of the nurses. There were about 4-5 of them there. I was worried that they would stick me into the big room where several chemotherapy patients would be getting treatment. Fortunately, I got to stay in my own little room. I guess they figured it would better if I were by myself instead of by all of the older patients. I was the youngest patient by far. The room I had was fairly small. It was by a window, had a small TV (that only played videos), and was closest to the bathroom. There was a large chair to one side of the room and to the side of it was the IV stand. They told me to sit in the large chair and they would be right with me. I sat down and waited. One of the nurses came back to the room with a bunch of supplies. One of the supplies was a plastic carton that looked like an orange juice container. It had my name in it. “This is what I want you to go pee in. We need to measure how much you go to the bathroom each day. I’m going to put it in the bathroom.” She left for a second and came back. “Alright, let’s see if we can find a good vein.” She searched my arms and hands for a while and finally decided with a vein on my arm. She brought out the needle and started to poke away. Ouch! Is it supposed to hurt like this? She had poked about 10 times and still couldn’t get it. “Does this hurt?” I nodded my head. “Oh, I’m sorry. Let’s try a different one.” She found another good one on my hand. This time she got it right away. She taped the needle up and connected it to the IV machine. The IV stand had about 4 different sized bags on it. They all had my name on them. She plugged one of the larger ones up first. This large one was filled with saline. It’s basically just salt water. They pump you full of this for 4 hours to hydrate your body. This is needed before you put the actual chemo into they body. After the saline was done they connected the actual bag of chemo to you. This bag pumps for about an hour. Then they put another small bag in and pump that one for about and hour. Lastly they give you another large bag of saline to flush you out. They pump the second saline bag in twice as fast as the first. As I am writing this I can smell and taste this stuff. I can’t really describe it.

After I was all connected the nurse left the room. My mom was there with me. I just sat there for a while and didn’t really do anything. After about an hour my arm started to hurt. I mean really hurt! I could feel my veins getting bigger as the IV pumped away. I told my mom that it was hurting. She called the nurse. The nurse thought about the situation for a second and left to go get something. She came back with a damp towel and a heat pad. She put them on my arm and then turned the pump down a couple of notches. My arm started to feel better. She told us to let her know if we needed anything else. After she left I started to listen to some CD’s. After about two of them I started to get sleepy. I told my mom I was going to take a nap. She asked the nurse for a pillow and blanket. In a few minutes I fell asleep. I slept for maybe an hour and a half (off and on). When I woke up it was close to “lunch time”. The saline bag was just about done. After a couple of minutes the IV machine started to beep, indicating that the bag was empty. The nurse came into the room and connected the chemo bag. After I was all hooked up, she left again. It was around noon and I hadn’t gone to the bathroom all day. Now I had to go, bad! I told my mom and she called the nurse. The nurse unplugged the IV machine from the wall so I could carry it around. It had a battery in it so it could still pump me. “Don’t forget to pee in the container”, my mom reminded. I went to the bathroom and found my orange juice container. With some careful maneuvering, I was able to pee in it with about spilling a drop. After I was done I dragged my IV stand (it had wheels) back to the room. “Do you want to take a walk?” my mom asked. That didn’t sound like a bad idea. My mom and I walked around the nursing rooms for a couple of minutes. There were quite a few chemotherapy patients in the hospital. Most of them only had to be there for a few hours. I had to stay in the hospital all day. When we got back to my room, my mom asked if I wanted anything to eat. I was kind if hungry so she left for a couple of minutes and came back with some food. I ate as much as I could but I was feeling a little sick. I told the nurse and she brought out another bag filled with anti-nausea medicine. She connected it to the IV machine to be pumped at the same time as the chemo. Around that time my mom had to leave to go to work. My dad would be getting off work in a little bit and would come and keep me company. She left and I went back to sleep. When I woke back up my dad was there. I was now on the second saline bag. My dad and I watched a movie together. It was one of the worst movies I had ever seen. If any of you have to watch a movie at the hospital, don’t watch the ones that they have. It was a cheap imitation of “Passenger 57”. We watched it anyway. Hey, I had nothing better to do. Finally, around four o’clock, I was done. I was happy to get out of there. The day seemed like it lasted forever. My dad and I drove home.

That night I lost my hair. No, it didn’t fall off. I shaved it off. I knew I was going to lose it eventually and I didn’t want to see it falling out so I had my dad and brothers shave it. I have always been afraid of losing my hair but when it was all gone it didn’t look all to bad. I had a nice shaped melon. My brother’s friend Darren even said “you finally look like a Puerto Rican. It makes you look like you have some soul!” I felt good about that. I didn’t feel good that I had to the same thing I did today for the rest of the week.

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