Chemotherapy Round 1.

Until two weeks ago if you asked me what chemotherapy was I would have told you it was some kind of medicine you give bald kids in hospitals. I've figured out a few more things since then which I'll share with you. First, 35 year old hairy men get chemo too. Second, the term chemotherapy encompasses dozens of treatments consisting of different cocktails of anti-cancer drugs. The drugs target cells which are in the process of dividing, and if there is one thing monkey faced cells are good at doing it is dividing rapidly and gumming up your lymphatic system. Hopefully, if things go well you kill off more cancerous cells than hair cells or heart cells or whatever.

I started my treatment yesterday with the ABVD regime. Each letter stands for a drug. Adriamycin, Bleomycinm, Vinblastine and Dacarbazine. They come from the weirdest places. Vinblastine for instance is only found in a tiny African flower called the Madagascar periwinkle. I find it amazing that an obscure little plant from an island I'll probably never go to will save my life. Thanks periwinkle.

The photo above illustrates roughly what goes on in a chemotherapy session. Except instead of a Bacta tank there is just a regular bed, and instead of robots there is a nice nurse from Bury St. Edmunds named Lorraine. And unfortunately I had to leave my trousers on the whole time.

The nurse inserts something called a cannula into the veins in your hand, which is basically a needle with some tubes hanging out of it so she can easily switch between the various drugs. She then gives you a bunch of steroids and anti nausea pills and then you wait for a bit. First up was Adriamycin, which was injected into the cannula with a big needle. It felt cold and turns your piss the colour of cranberries. Then came Bleomycin and periwinkle juice (meh). The only discomfort came from the giant IV bag of Dacarbazine, which dripped for 40 minutes and felt like someone was shooting freeze dried icicles up my vein. Putting a heating pad on the arm seemed to relieve things. And that was it. I just went home and watched movies. So far no side effects, nausea, tiredness, death etc. It's basically just wait and see how the cancer responds.