NO Chemo!...Today.

I was supposed to have my first chemo treatment today. And oh boy was I ready! I even cleaned up my whole house so that everything was clean when I was feeling pukey. I packed up my bag full of all the chemo essentials (according to the internet blogs I stalk), and we went to the clinic. I was gonna kick that treatment's trash!

From the moment we got there, things didn't go like we planned. The nurses weren't acting like they should've been, there was miscommunication all over the place, nobody was telling me what was happening, and I was frustrated beyond belief. They told me I couldn't get chemo today because I didn't have a port and the drugs I was getting couldn't be inserted through an IV. From the nurses, who were not professional at all, I found out I was looking at 6 months of chemo instead of the 3 I had been expecting, which means my cancer is more advanced than I had been told, so I started freaking out. They told me I had to get a port placed. A port is a catheter they surgically insert in your chest so that they don't have to start an IV every treatment. I had been told previously that I didn't need a port, so I was confused at the different information I was receiving. I was told that I would have to miss school Tuesday and Wednesday - Tuesday to get the port and Wednesday to get my first treatment - and then I would be sick Thursday and Friday. I can't afford to miss a whole week of school, so I got even more freaked out. I told them I wanted to talk to the doctor, because there was obvious oversight and conflicting information on their part - and as this is a situation that literally affects my entire life, I should have been informed about what was going on from the start. A lot happened, but that's the gist.

I ended up talking to the nurse practitioner. Here's the deal. I'm a very positive person and I don't even remember the last time I got really mad about something, but I was MAD. When I get mad, I have no problem telling people exactly what I think and exactly what they have done wrong. I yelled/talked to the nurse practitioner for a long time and told her that it was 100% not okay that the nurses acted the way they did, that I wasn't informed about a change in my treatment, that I would be missing more work because of an error on their part, and that I found out my cancer is more advanced because a gossipy nurse couldn't keep her mouth shut. I yelled a lot. I think I almost made the nurse practitioner cry, and whenever someone said sorry, I just said "good. You should be." These are the people I am trusting with my life, and they did not make a good impression on me at all today.

We got everything figured out, though in the nurse practitioner's words, it is definitely not ideal. (No shiz, Sherlock.) I will have a port implanted on Tuesday and start my chemotherapy Friday (a week from today). My doctor called me tonight and was very apologetic and explained that he knew he had made huge mistakes in how this was handled. I really appreciated the phone call, but I'm still not happy. My cancer is for sure stage 3, maybe stage 4. We will know if it is stage 4 once we get the results of the bone marrow biopsy, which should be the middle of next week. The staging doesn't change the treatment I'm receiving, it just lengthens the cycles - thus, 6 months of chemo. He also told me that I have a tumor in my chest that is about 10 cm, which is big and puts me on the border of having "bulky disease" which ensures the need for radiation after chemo.

All in all, it was an awful day and I'm just glad it's almost over. The one bright spot is I bought a fish. I wanted a puppy but Michelle said no. (Not even cancer will convince her!) I named him Chemo and he's adorable. I figure this way, my brain can have some kind of positive relationship with the idea of Chemo.