Hello Ladies
Well finally started treatment yesterday (Tuesday 25th) kicking off with Chemoradiotherapy so the day went thus:
8.00am - Cardboard Bowl of Hot water put in front of me and told to put my hands in there up to the wrist. To help them find a vein in the back of your hand I think.
8.30am - First "flush through" drip attached. a saline solution that took 2 hours.Then various additions were put in. Maybe a steroid solution and antisickness before the Chemo drip went in for two to three hours, then (and this is the good part) they hooked on the final "flush through" drip for the last two hours and told me I could take it down to Radiology and get my Radiotherapy done!! Brilliant. So we actually left the hospital at around 3.30 approx. The staff were so kind and wonderful and I can't fault them on any level!
Finally got my Radiotherapy full schedule and it doesn't look too bad until we have some very early ones in the last couple of weeks but we can stay over in the hospital hotel which is in fact what we did on Monday night for the 8.00am start yesterday. I felt absolutely fine yesterday, just had a bit of a full feeling in my gut but no sickness. I had a bad start as I had a cracking headache due to severe lack of sleep. I was worried about going to the loo with the drip!! That was just silly. Back today for Radiotherapy at 12.55pm but had to be there at 11.25 to do enema and drink the water beforehand. They were having problems with some of the machines so I didn't get in until 1.40 by which time my bladder felt fit to burst. So note to self: Always ask if there's a delay before drinking the water! Do feel tired today though but trying to stay awake until I sleep for the duration of the night!
Please Angela ask me anything that I may have missed and thank you so much for your thoughts.
Sarah thank you for all your support in getting me through to this stage.
Hello Snobird
Well done for getting started and great idea to do a new thread to keep this all in one place. It’s going to be really helpful for Angela and others when they start treatment. Good point about the potential delays at radiotherapy-this was very frequent in my own experience! xx
Hi AMH and welcome to the group
just in case your post gets missed by others in the group, I wondered if you’d like to make a new post to introduce yourself and others can join in to welcome you. If you hit the button “+new “ at the top right of the page you can start a fresh post for yourself, tell us as much or as little as you feel you want to, and feel free to ask any questions. xx
Hi Snobird
I had a similar journey time to hospital and it just got so tiring every day. And delays were so common at the hospital..I was very rarely seen at my actual appointment time, but they were so busy in the radiotherapy department. I remember the first time I went and couldn’t believe how many people were there for treatment. But staff were lovely and I hope yours are the same. I’m fine thanks but had a busy day yesterday so I was exhausted in the evening and nodding off on the sofa so I was in bed early. I’ve had a good sleep and raring to go today!
Every day you do is another day closer to finishing this..I used to keep that in my head doing treatment-one day closer to the finish line. xxx
Hi Angela
Just saw your question and have to say that hospitals must do different things.I never once had to have an enema in all my treatments. Interested to see Snobird’s reply though! xx
Hi Angela
Most people need a full bladder for treatment, as it helps protect your other organs, but it does depend on the tumour location, so I do know of ladies who didn’t have to do this. Radiotherapy kills the tumour but can badly affect other healthy organs unfortunately. xx
