When people think about chemotherapy, most people’s first thought (other than how long have you got left to live) are about the side effects and, in nearly all cases, hair loss. The side effects can be challenging and there are lots of them. I was lucky during my first round of chemo. Whilst I did have a few issues, mainly around going to the toilet and how loose things became, my only real problem was neuropathy which is almost certainly permanent and has left me with painful/numb/pin and needle like symptoms for my toes, finger tips and my nose and upper lip. Apparently my second round of chemo (with different drugs) can have similar effects although hair loss is meant to be more likely. Oh well. I have rather more pressing issues, like waking up still breathing in the morning, to concern me.
Back to the purpose of this post. What people don’t realise is the amount of faffing around that goes along with the chemo. Having your chemo every other week on the same day for 6 months is straight forward and you can manage your work/life around it. The rest though is tiresome. When you finish your 4-5 hour chemo infusion session you are then hooked up to an external chemo pump that takes 46 hours to discharge its content into you. You then have to get the pump disconnected. In my first chemo round not once did my 46 hour pump empty within 46 hours. The average time, I would estimate it took to empty, would be closer to 52 hours. All very interesting, however, and more pertinent, they will not disconnect the pump until it is completely empty. Therfore three days after your chemo session you have to have the pump disconnected. A week after your chemo session you then have to have your PICC dressing changed. Eleven days after your chemo day you then have an appointment with your consultant or specialist nurse. On the same day you also have to have a blood test. Whilst the appointment can normally be conducted over the phone (but not always, thereby entailing a trip up to Guy’s) the pump disconnect, dressing change and blood test clearly have to be done at a medical establishment.
Very fortunately Kent/Medway do still provide medical services in the community. For my pump disconnect and dressing change I just pop down to my local ‘district nurse’ station which is only a 5 minutes drive. The only negative I can think of is that they operate from a room in a hospice. Trying to get their patients desensitised to where they may end up? The other comment I would make is that on my first visit my initial impression, regarding the odour of the establishment, was that it smelt of old/ dead people. For the blood test I have to go to hospital (fortunately Sidcup, not Guy’s) which is only a 35-40 minute drive. As the disconnect, blood test and dressing change are booked individually they can occur at anytime during the day. For my first round of chemo this was not a problem as I wasn’t working. Now that I am working, trying to arrange your work/life diary around this itinerant schedule can be problematic and trying to arrange things in advance, such as meetings, is not always straightforward.