Friends and side effects

Cancer, chemo and side effects go hand in hand. My chemo was Interferon… A nasty drug which I had to take for 52 weeks…. 4 weeks of  5 days a week, IV’s in the arm and 48 weeks of shots, 3 shots a week... It didn't last 52 weeks, it lasted longer...

I was done with the first month of treatment, the IV’s and we had started with the first week of the shots, my dear friend Niels and housemate in our student home in The Netherlands and his girlfriend Moniek came to give me some moral support and see the country. And what is more fun & comforting than seeing the country by going to the hospital together with your “sick” friend???

Usually my mom, dad, Bastiaan’s mom and dad (they came over for 5 weeks from Holland),Bastiaan, Hanneke (my sister), Jan Willem (my brother) or other friends would come with me but now they all had a day off too. Niels and Moniek were more than happy to come with me and I would normally be awake the whole ride home (about one hour long) and then fall asleep in my own bed, before the real side effects would start, as in shaking, trembling, throwing up, running a fever, not be able to go to the bathroom or going all the time, and did I mention the shaking and trembling???

So, we got to the hospital, I get my shot (the second one that week, it was Wednesday) chat with all the nurses, have lot’s of fun and show Niels and Moniek the differences between hospitals in Holland and the USA. And introduced them to all the fantastic nurses and doctors in Fort Wayne.

We get the car I sit down and I’m just rambling feeling GREAT! I would get some anti nausea medicine, some flu resisting medicine, sleep medicine and some good pain killers together with the Interferon. And somehow this time the little cocktail was doing its work fantastically! I noticed that halfway home I’m slurring a bit… not too much…. Just a little bit, or so I thought. Niels and Moniek who never had been in the company of someone who is on chemo didn’t know what to expect so they figured it was normal.

But it wasn’t…

They put me to bed, which apparently wasn’t that easy. On really bad days Bastiaan would escort me out of the car, in the house and in bed. Niels and Moniek had the privilege this time. And all the time I was mumbling, speaking in slurred sentences and not making any sense in whatever I was trying to say.

They put me to bed and I slept…

In the evening the side effects started again, like clockwork, and that Thursday Niels and Moniek went home. My dad’s turn was that next day, on Friday, and we went to the hospital. Before they hooked me up to all the proper machinery and gave me my shot I told them about my strange drive home and that if was feeling so woozy and that I had problems making normal sentences.

And then all hell broke loose!

My fantastic oncologist, a colleague oncology doctor, and 5 nurses were standing by my chair, asking me questions, taking blood and arranging MRI’s and CAT scan’s…

They came to the conclusion the nausea medicine they had given me for the last month was only supposed to be given to me for one week (or given once every 3/4 weeks like you have with more often used chemo). Not five weeks in a row every single day…

Luckily there were no long lasting effects, but they gave me 2 weeks “off”, as a breather and recover from the buildup of medicine. After those two weeks we continued with the interferon but I can never have any nausea medicine again.
But that’s all right with me; I wasn’t planning on getting sick no more anyway…

And yes, now I know…
• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause

... Means get YOUR BUTT back INTO the hospital, chemo or not!



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