Hi all, well I went along on Wednesday. Pretty terrified actually due to the famous side effects, and it has been 6 weeks since I had a cannula in me! They are probably going to use a PICC line as it's my hospital's policy to use these as much as poss to protect the veins, so I've got that to look forward to!
The process itself was easy, took less than an hour once I'd done the wait bit (3 hours). I came in Tuesday for the initial chat and to give some blood, so that probably made the process a bit quicker. The nurse was lovely, though she did worry me a bit by going into a coughing fit! She is funnily enough allergic to one of the drugs given the patient before me, but apologised lots! Two gradual squeezes of the big syringe thing and it was done. The saline made my arm freezing cold, but they use heat pads before to bring the veins up, so my arm was nice and hot anyway.
Since then I've been pretty good. Had my meals, and am taking my anti sickness steroids and stomach lining acid medicines, and, apart from a little bit of burping and grumbly tummy, been not too bad so far. I went to work yesterday (office job so not a tremendous amount of effort needed) and left a little early. Not got any fatigue particularly yet or diarrheoa/constipation problems (which they said would definitely happen) and my husband had a funny tummy anyway so anything I get could be a little bug. Being positive and taking each day as it comes. The blood levels will start dropping soon so maybe there'll be some more effects next week but we'll see how it goes.
I think I had more effects the first day when it was all put in - what with the funny tummy and I ate a doughnut far too late in the evening so had a wave or two of nausea which quickly passed. Sleep's not been a problem for me personally, though they did say the steroids would probably interfere with that. I'm taking them for 3 days and the stomach lining stuff for 5 days. They loaded me up with some more anti sickness just in case and some mouthwash as I tend to get bleeding gums. Went shopping for a softer toothbrush and hairbrush and some other bits and bobs including a thermometer, so feel a bit prepared now!
Thanks for the comments left on this page so far by the way, nice to know people are reading and know what I'm going through!
