Going through Chemo is a pretty long and drawn out experience, bit like having cancer, it takes a whole day and you pretty much spend about 90% of it sitting around doing nothing, while they pump toxic drugs in to your system.

I thought it might be fun to document my day for myself and for others who are interested in it.

Start – 5:12am

Early morning wake up call. 

Yup it’s early,  little too early if you ask me, but that’s one of the down falls of living in the country and going to a city hospital, you spend most of your time traveling and when you have a 8:30am appointment with your Oncologist, waking up extra early is one of the not so joys.

But thankfully the drive down today wasn’t as bad as other times and we managed to make it to Cabrini Hospital about 15 min’s early for my appointment with my oncologist – who I  suprised when I walked in to the reception area and said “Good Morning Dear”  hehe.

The usual thing that happens when I see my Oncologist before Chemo is a quick chat about how I’m feeling, any pain  shortness of breath etc.  Then I rattle off a few questions – today involved when I have my first review scan, am I allowed to go swimming (Yes!)  can anything be done about my face bloating up. ( yes dropping the strength of the Dex I’m on.)  Finally I get another bood test request form and I”m sent on my way down to Day oncology.

I tried to get a few photo’s of the entrance of Day Oncology, but sadly too many people where hanging round and I think i would have got a few questions from the nurse.

So this is the view from my chair while I’m waiting to get hooked up, as you can see, lots of drugs await me (left) and my case notes (right)  behind the table is the computers the Nursing staff use to keep track of people coming in and what drugs they need to order etc.

One of the first things that happens before they hook you up is the Nurse takes your Blood pressure and temperature, this is so they can see if your healthy enough to handle the chemo, my first cycle I managed to spike a temperature, but thankfully I still had the infusion and a bit of panadol that helped bring my temp down.
Over the last few weeks my blood pressure has been both up and down, but thankfully today it was back around it’s normal range, which is low but normal for someone my age.

Bit of blurry arm bling, my lovely red “allergy bracelet” which reminds the Nurses that yes I am allergic to something and please please remember to ask me what it is before you try and give it to me without reading my notes. (yes that did happen)

Finally after a little wait I was hooked up and the boring bit happens, the waiting. you sit around Day oncology either reading, sleeping or listening to music, today I did a bit of sleeping mostly because of the early wake up and then played around on my phone, when I wasn’t getting up going to the toilet.

One of the nice things about Day oncology is the little kitchen they have on site.

In the Fridge is a good stock of sandwiches and cold drinks – Oj, Apple Juice and lemonaid that you and your visitors can raid at any time.

On the bench is sweet and savoury biscuits, fresh fruit and tea/coffee, it’s pretty nice when you’re sitting around doing nothing you can grab a snack.

So that’s pretty much a day in Oncology, after my infusion was finished they hooked me up to a portable infusion bag that I’m wearing now, and will get unhooked on Wednesday.