All my cancer treatments, beginning in March, have been leading me to this point; today’s high dose chemotherapy treatment and the reinfusion of my stem cells on Thursday. It’s been 8 hours since the chemo, and I feel a little lightheaded, but fine.

I have tried hard to educate myself about what to expect and how to prepare. There are marvelous resources out there to help and I’ve learned a great deal. But I still had some questions for which I needed answers.

All the medical professionals I have asked, all the medical videos I have watched, and all the medical literature I have found about what to expect after such a massive dose of chemotherapy (aka poison) said that it would take 5-7 days for the side effects to manifest themselves. I couldn’t understand how this was possible. Not that I’m ungrateful, but why, when they push such powerful poison straight into my heart (through a catheter hooked right into the jugular vein), would it take 5-7 days for my body to begin to react?

Now I know!! I am going to enlighten you today, just in case you ever wondered these things, like I have. I hope you’re not squeamish…

These are miracles of modern medical discovery, Along with a healthy dose of skepticism about their reality, I am grateful for them.

 After passing all the vital checks and lab work, and talking to nurses and doctors and the pharmacist, my nurse came in with an armful of syringes. Most of them were full of saline solution to clean out my catheter tubes before and after every medicine. If you’re curious about the catheter, just look up “central venous catheter”. It’s not pretty, but it saves my veins from being stuck hundreds (literally) of times over the next four weeks, so I’ll just be grateful.

What was in the other syringes was half of the answer to my question!

Here are some of the things they do to delay or mitigate all the side effects: I was given a cocktail of medicines that they call “supportive medications”. They began with saline, then they pumped in steroids (which seem to make every part of cancer treatment work better), and an anti-nausea medicine that lasts three days (to fight off the nausea preemptively. During the hour that took, the nurse gave me another round of education, mostly reiterating the training we got a month ago about the exacting requirements for keeping everything sterile and bacteria free; everything from cleaning my bathroom and doing my laundry to how to prepare my food. Bill has his work cut out for him for the next 30-100 days.

Then the nurse suited up to give me the chemotherapy. She wore a gown, double gloves, safety glasses and, as always, a mask. It seemed a little like a haz-mat situation for her, but they pump this stuff right into my heart.

It’s a wonder and a miracle that it is key to remission.

Here’s another miraculous medical discovery:

Cold Therapy. One of the most difficult side effects of this chemo is mouth and throat sores. They can get so bad that a person can barely eat anything for days, which weakens a patient even more. But they’ve discovered that if your mouth and throat are really cold, the capillaries in them close and the chemotherapy can’t go into them. So you can avoid most or all of the sores if you’ll just ice your mouth! (They’re actually researching being able to ice your head so you don’t lose your hair, but that’s not proven yet, so not used except in clinical trials).

For the next hour, I rolled ice around in my mouth-3 big cups of it by the end. My tongue was numb, I couldn’t speak clearly, and I’m not anxious to have an Icee anytime soon, but hopefully it does the job! I’d much prefer a numb tongue to what these sores could do to me!

Finally, the nurse hooked the chemo into my catheter, along with another anti-nausea medicine.

After more saline and instructions, they sent me home with 5 pills to take every day to manage the side effects: an antifungal, an antiviral, an antibiotic, and two more nausea medicines, plus a big bag of saline with some potassium in it to go into my catheter for the next 20 hours. It’s quite a cocktail, and I’m not sure how I feel about so many powerful chemicals circulating in my body.

I finally have my answers! That is how they hold off the side effects, mostly the nausea and vomiting. It’s a good thing for answers to prayer. When we started this winding road in February, we felt sure it was the right path to take. So, off I go.

I’m not armed with nothing, after all.