The whole clinic had a desolate air to it, with only about 10 people in the waiting room and despite the attempts of the staff to maintain some semblance of Christmas cheer, they were failing miserably.  The only positive thing I had going for me was that I would be avoiding at least one needle, having already had my blood tests done the previous week.  Except, even that was not a positive. 

As it turned out, my white blood count had been too low the previous week, so they were going to have to do another blood test anyway to ascertain whether or not I was ready for the chemo.  We would then have to endure an hour and a half wait for the blood results before we would know whether or not the process was going to take place.  Super!  I had spent two weeks preparing myself mentally for this whole thing and now there was a possibility it would be postponed.  I was a little stressed out at this stage.

I left Nik in the waiting room for a while and had my blood test (she also managed to check the porosity of my veins at the same time by jabbing around in there for a while), was weighed (almost as traumatic as the blood test), was measured and had my blood pressure checked (decidedly normal given the circumstances).  We then settled down to wait for the results.

Just after 09h15 the pharmacist delivered my post-chemo drugs to us (a good indication that chemo was going to go ahead).  These consist of 3 different drugs to combat nausea and are taken only over the 3 days post-chemo.  Of these, the most significant is a cortico-steroid which requires that one takes 16 tablets in the morning and 16 tablets at night.  Fortunately, these can be dissolved in water and don’t have to be swallowed whole.  For somebody who takes Panado as a last resort for pain, 21 tablets in one sitting is a daunting prospect.

At 09h30, Sister Sadie called me into the chemo room to begin the chemo.  She went through the drug regimen with me and asked me what I knew about what was lying in store for me.  I told her that I had read up a bit and heard more from others and she advised me to put aside everything I knew about chemo.  In her experience, every single person has a different reaction to the chemo and only once the first cycle has been completed can anyone have any understanding of what it entails and how it affects them.  Good advice, it turns out!!

Sadie put the needle into my hand and took me over to one of the recliners where she set up my drip.  She handed me my 5 bags and showed me how to stop the drip as a bag finished.  Once a bag finished, Sadie or Sister Maria would then come in and attach the next bag until it was completed.  She then got me comfortable, placed a cute little blanket over my arm to hide the sight of the drip and got the first bag going.  At which stage, I burst into tears. 

The horror of what I was actually about to embark on had finally hit me and I couldn’t believe that this was something that I was going to have to go through.  Fortunately, there were only two other people in the chemo room, so I didn’t make a total fool of myself.  After I had pulled myself together, Maria went through the cycle of drugs with me.

The first drip is a saline solution to prepare the body.  Second is what they term “Red Devil” (aka Adriamycin), predominantly because it is red, but also because it is the real bastard of chemo.  This is the guy responsible for the hair loss, heart damage etc.  They run the drip really fast for this drug because it can cause damage in the veins if it spends too long sitting around!

Following from this, the next drip is steroids.  This is for the nausea (and to ensure that cancer patients end up looking like little puffy marshmallow people).  The third bag contained my second chemo drug, Cyclophosphamide, which has to be administered very slowly as it causes burning in the tip of the nose if administered too quickly.  Nobody knows why it has this specific effect, but it causes the person to feel intense hayfever symptoms.  Towards the end of the drip, I did feel a slight burning in my nose, as well as the onset of a sinus headache which lasted two days.  The final drip they give is a flush for the system.  The whole process took an hour and a half.

During my treatment, I was visited by a new angel in my life, Nikki, who is also in the midst of fighting breast cancer.  I was so immensely touched that she had dragged herself to the hospital given that she had had her chemo the day before and was probably feeling appalling.  She also brought some flowers, excellent reading material, suckers and a buff like they wear in Survivor (complete with instructions for the terminally uncool people like me).  Joshua loves it and has tried it out in several ways, favouring the Ninja look, which is a little scary late at night and might actually give me a heart attack before the chemo gets a chance.

By 11h30 we had left the hospital and headed home.  I was feeling surprisingly okay, despite the headache, but we took it a little easy for the afternoon and watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie on DVD, which is brilliant!  That evening we went to Nik’s cousin’s house for Christmas dinner which was a real treat.  Rather than the standard turkey and ham, we had a fabulous paella packed to bursting with prawns and mussels, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.  Jonty, Erica, Tim and Alex had gone all out to make it a really special family Christmas.

Christmas morning was great fun as we opened our presents and had breakfast, complete with crackers.  We had been invited to have lunch with our friend, Lana and her family, but had delayed confirming it until we knew what the effects of the chemo would be.  Fortunately, the only real effect seemed to be a little fatigue, so we headed off to Lana’s for an outstanding lunch of turkey, trimmings and chocolate mousse.  It was a beautiful day in Cape Town, so we spent a lethargic afternoon at the pool while the kids swam.  We left Lana’s at about 17h30 to pop in at old family friends for a drink before wending our way home.  The wending, it seemed, took longer than expected and we ended up having Christmas dinner and catching up with friends I had not seen in 19 years!!  We got home rather late on Christmas night, but after having one of the most festive Christmas Days I can remember.  How incredibly lucky we are to have such wonderful friends who went to so much trouble to make Christmas so special for us.

Unfortunately, however, other forces were conspiring to make this Christmas unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.  Because, while we were eating, drinking and being merry in Cape Town, a few people in Aberdeen were doing the same.... in our house!  Sometime over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, a group of people had broken into our house and had themselves a bit of a party.  Not only did they steal what they could carry, but they also had a meal, drank all the alcohol and rifled through every single cupboard, box and drawer in the house.  They had obviously planned to return later, as bags had been packed with clothes, food and other small items.  They cleaned out our deep freeze (all the food from the Cancer Society was taken amongst others) and generally had a blast.  My poor Mom and Hilary were due at friends for drinks and had popped in to check on the house and feed the cats en route, only to discover absolute mayhem.  Needless to say, after calling the police and checking through everything, their Christmas evening was somewhat ruined.

As was the rest of our holiday...  We decided that it would it be better if we headed home sooner rather than later, and spent Sunday packing up for an early departure on Monday morning.  Christmas magic had ended in a rather rude blast of reality.

by Samantha Jankovich-Besan on Saturday, 01 January 2011 at 23:35