Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacoman
The whole needle jammed in the chest thing sounds brutal  . Holy shit, man!? |
Well, it depends on the nurse and if she puts her shoulder into it or not. I've briefly looked at it once... damned thing looks like a crooked fish hook. Sometimes, it is about as painful as a large mosquito bite and others it stings like a bee. It takes up to an hour before it gets comfortable in my chest, or maybe it is better to say I can't feel it in there so much so that is about as comfortable as it gets. There is a plastic tube attached to it so the chemo can get pumped into my heart and then throughout my body. I get three bags of chemo stuff, and the final one is given to me through a pump which I have to carry with me in a fanny pack and have it in my bed with me. It pumps folfox or whatever they call it for 46 hours. Then I go back to the cancer center and they take it off, pull the needle out after running saline through the tube, put some cotton and a bandage on me and send me on my way.
It is a pain, but it would be much worse if I had to stay in the hospital for 2 days every other week watching a big bag of stuff drip into me slowly. I can sleep in my own bed and not have nurses and doctors pestering me around the clock, so I just remind myself of that as I bear having a toxic chemical being pumped through me for 2 days. I have to be more careful so as not to catch the tubes in a car door or on a chair.