I made it through my last Carbo infusion adminstered in the hospital, but it was not easy.  It was the hardest treatment ever for me.   I was dreading that it was going to take 12 hours, but in truth, it was more like 26.  I had tried to keep my sanity by rationalizing when I went into the hospital Thursday afternnon for blood work and to check in. that by the next morning, I'll be back at home and resting.  Not so.  If it wasn't one thing, it was another and everything just caused  more delays and problems.  Don't get me wrong, I'm fine and it's over and everything is good, but if you're told about a 12 hour infusion, don't naively think like I did that it will take only 12 hours.  

I was to get blood drawn at the doctor office at 1:30 Thursday.  Being anxious, I arrive by 1 because I know it takes a while for the CBC and counts and chemistry to be done.  I figure the sooner I start, the quicker I'll be done.  That's funny now that I know how long it really did take.  Anyway, my labs were fine and with some paperwork, it was about 3 pm when I got to my hospital room.  My husband, Chuck , and I sat around the room for a couple of hours before a nurse even saw us and then she told me they were changing shifts and had an emergency and apologized because they didn’t have a chemo nurse but one would be called in for 7 pm.  Not a good way to start, huh? Chuck said up until then, it was like the worse hotel room we had even been in.  We just sat around reading and finding out there was nothing on tv to watch.  I thought it was more like a Guinness Book record for being in a waiting room. 

Finally, around 8:30 that evening, I saw the chemo nurse and things got started.   Figures it would be then, because the good prime time shows were on and Chuck and I were just starting to enjoy Survivor, but once things got started, it was like a continuous flow of nurses, assistants, helpers, doctors, etc.  Every 40 minutes they checked my bp and temp and came by to check on me.  Not to mention the changing of chemo bags.  I think it was a total of 9, but I wasn’t exactly keeping count.  I kept trying to sleep some between all the interruptions, but how much rest can someone get in 30-40 minute intervals?  Poor Chuck, he didn’t even try to sleep until after 3 am when he was sure that I was okay. You see the whole reason I had to do this chemo in the hospital was because I had a bad allergic reaction with the last round.  The plan was to give me this drug in 4 diluted amounts and carefully watch for another reaction.  I did fine with the first small bag with a 1/1000 th amount, and the 2^nd with 1/100 but after the 3^rd with 1/10, I had another reaction.  Yep, after all that, I still had a reaction!  They gave me something for it but I was still itchy, flushed, and had bad chest pains and tightness in my throat.  Luckily, I could still breathe though.  They then gave me yet another med and said to wait an hour to see if that helped.  It was now after 3 am.  I expected I would have been done by now and here I had bearly started.  I still had to do the real slow infusion part of  90% of the Carbo.  I wasn’t so much scared but worried and frustrated because I felt like I needed to finish up all 6 rounds and here I was having taken only 10 % of the chemo and had a reaction again.  Besides it was so early in the morning and I didn’t get hardly any sleep so I was mentally spent but knew that at the best I had many hours yet to try and get this drug in me.   

But the rash and itching and redness and all did go away in an hour and then I got the big bag with 90% of the chemo at 4 am and it was going to take 10 hours from then to slowly infuse.  Miraculously I didn’t have another reaction.  I don't know how other than by the grace of Jesus.  3:30 pm Friday, the next day, I was released.  Now I only have one last chemo session next Thurs for the topotecan only which should take a couple hours.  Should be a breeze compared to this last session, huh?