Greetings from Fred Hutch. My third chemo infusion is currently underway. It is unusually cold in this room today. Also, they decided to try a “slow drip” approach to the oxaliplatin portion of today’s infusion “menu.” That means that the oxaliplatin (which is “notorious” for its side effects, as one nurse mentioned to me today) infuses at half the rate, and thus takes twice as long: four hours rather than two. While this makes for a very long day (looks it will wrap around 8pm), the “slow drip” approach helps reduce the risk of any the 10 million side effects popping up.

I decided to skip the icing (cryotherapy) today and see how that goes. Wearing the freezing mitts and socks for four hours — in an unnaturally cold room — is a bit more than I can take today. I haven’t been having neuropathy issues over the last few infusions. So, we’ll see how this goes.

Today’s infusion brought a new twist: hyper, racing mind! This kicked in during the pre-meds, and I’m not sure what caused it. They did not give me Benadryl — which made me go mad coo-coo last go around — so that wasn’t it. Instead of Benadryl, they gave me another antihistamine: Zyrtec. I am assuming that is the culprit today. Maybe I just have a hard time with antihistamines in general.

After the pre-med infusion started, I got this very hyper feeling; my mind was racing and I was extremely talkative. For a while, that was kind of fun. I felt like my mind was working in new and interesting ways. After a while, it stopped being fun; I started feeling anxious, confused, and very irritable. I think what helped with that was getting up and moving around.

That’s right, you don’t actually need to stay seated during the chemo infusion process. If you look up at the photo of me, you‘ll notice two electric cords plugged into the outlet. Those are connected to this bad boy. This, my friends, is a portable drip stand. I stepped back from it to take this photo. The oxaliplatin (still over an hour to go) is in one of the bags hanging from hooks at the top.

If you want to get up and move around, the IV stand moves with you, on wheels. You just need to make sure and unplug it first! It then switches to battery power. This is how someone on a chemo IV can go to the bathroom.

I am still somewhat amped up. Could be the steroids (which are just half dose, like last time), the Zyrtec, maybe a combination, or something else. I don’t seem to be having any huge reaction to the oxaliplatin. There have been many little things – sort throat, numb lips, weird chemical taste on my lips. All in a day’s infusion! Will continue to keep tabs, but hopefully not in a super-anxious way, which is what I was doing a few hours ago.