My Last Chemo
This day 1 year ago was my last chemo treatment. I was more than happy to be closing this chapter of my journey. I realized that I had truly survived the 20 long weeks of chemo. Whew! I clearly remember when I couldn’t see myself making it through 16 visits to the infusion center, but I did. I made it!
My Chemotherapy Drugs
My chemo treatment was broken up into what is called 2 rounds. The first round consisted of biweekly treatments of Adriamycin and Cytoxan, followed by a Neulasta injection 24 hours after each treatment. The second round was either going to be weekly treatments of a drug called Taxol, or every 3 week treatment of a drug called Taxotere. I remember not being able to imagine having weekly treatments after the first round was over,. The thought of it alone made me cry. The weekly Taxol treatments ended up being more tolerable, than I was told.
This brings me to day of my last chemo treatment. The day started off pretty normal. Just a quick repeat breast MRI, followed by my last treatment. Pretty simple morning right? Wrong! The raging bladder infection that I had for 10 weeks would not allow the 30 minute MRI to be completed. Because I have horrible veins, I had to increase my fluid intake for the IV to be placed more easily. Well the increased fluids, made it nearly impossible to lie still on the MRI table without having to go to the restroom every 10 minutes. So needless to say the test was unsuccessful, after 3 different attempts.
Well that part was over and it was time to get that last treatment behind me. As luck would have it there were multiple delays, that hadn’t occurred before, that pushed back the start of my treatment, but finally it was started and completed with no problems.
The End
ALL DONE! Now where is that bell that everyone gets to ring after their last treatment? What, no bell?! Nope, not a single bell in sight. Oh well, I was done and more than happy to close this chapter.
No more Chemo!
