First chemo treatment

So, I'm sitting here, waiting for my friend to arrive and we'll go off to the hospital. I'm having my first session of Nordic Treatment. This one will only take thirty minutes, as it's the CHOP of R-CHOP. I will have the R at the very end of my treatment. 

I have no idea how I'm going to react today, so it's fingers crossed. I have an appointment with the hairdresser at the unit straight after the session, which will be interesting. I get a free wig, but I will also buy my own in a few weeks.  My own hairdresser is going to come with me for that. 

After two or three cycles I'm have an autologous stem cell transplant. I'll be in isolation for about a month. Currently I am the only person being treated for mantle cell lymphoma at the hospital I'm attending. 

When I arrived,  a nurse took my temperature. It was too high, so then she had to take bloods and have them taken to the other hospital nearby for analysis. So, what was supposed to be a short visit turned into a long one!

That took over two hours, so in the meantime I met the wig man. As soon as my friend and I walked in his room we both said, 'that's it!'  We had both spied a grey bob wig on top of his cupboard and both instantly liked it. 

The next thing was to match my hair. I've been going grey since I was 16 years old and have never coloured my hair. Although it is now predominantly grey, there is lots of dark brown in it too. I was totally amazed that he could show us a swatch of hair that was nearly a match for mine. I left the room really pleased and took a photo of it for my hairdresser to copy the style.

I returned to the treatment lounge, where they were ready for me and I started my infusion. I have to say that it had no detrimental effect on me, despite it starting to snow outside!

We ended up leaving around 3.30pm and got home for 4pm, me driving us both. 

I feel that my first treatment went very well. I was there much longer than expected but that's because they were being very careful with me. I left with a bagful of drugs with 29 tablets to take every day for the first five days then it goes down to 20. After that I have to have daily injections for five days. It's lucky my friend is a nurse, as she's going to do them for me. 

I spent the rest of the evening resting, after I made the tea and walked the dog!!!