The calm surrounding restarting the drugs evaporated about two hours before I had to head up there. \u00c2\u00a0I started getting headachey and overheated. \u00c2\u00a0I tried everything to make it go away (eating, drinking, pain killer.) it wouldn’t go away b\/c it was psychosomatic. \u00c2\u00a0This was happening a bit in PDX. My Dr there explained to me that it was a very well documented phenomenon that chemo\/interferon patients get psychosomatic symptoms *before* they go to actually get the drug. \u00c2\u00a0So chemo patients will start puking in the morning before they go to the hospital for chemo. \u00c2\u00a0In my case, I got headaches, feverish and even more tired in the hour before I was going to leave for infusion.<\/p>\n
My appointment was for 5pm. \u00c2\u00a0I got there 15mins early. \u00c2\u00a0But when I arrived at the office, it was like an episode from the twilight zone. \u00c2\u00a0All the receptionists were different, they didn’t know the nurse practitioner I was there to see, they didn’t my Dr’s Physician’s Assistant, and they didn’t even know my doctors phone number. Apparently this office is used by different doctors each day. \u00c2\u00a0Rather than have one set of receptionists and assistants, each doctor has their own set of receptionists and assistants. \u00c2\u00a0I guess they just sit in a cubicle the rest of the time answering calls and scheduling appointments.<\/p>\n
So I call up to the receptionist who is in her cubicle, and she says that she will page the nurse and send her down. \u00c2\u00a015 minutes later I call back, but it is 5:02 and the call goes straight to the message system. \u00c2\u00a0The twilight zone receptionist leaves. \u00c2\u00a0Doctors leave with their bags. You can see where this is going. \u00c2\u00a0Knocking on doors I found someone who knew what I was talking about and who i was looking for. \u00c2\u00a0He made some calls, and actually spoke to her: there was an emergency in the chemo clinic, but she would be down as soon as she could get there. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
About an hour passed. \u00c2\u00a0I was starting to get more psychosomatically symptomatic. \u00c2\u00a0Plus I was getting tired and hungry. \u00c2\u00a0Right when I was really ready to walk out the door I decided to try the open-the-book-when-waiting-for-the-bus technique. \u00c2\u00a0Right when you give up on the bus coming quickly, sit down and open up your book to read, the bus inevitably shows up before you finish the first page. \u00c2\u00a0Its like Law of Nature. \u00c2\u00a0So I announce that to S, who doesn’t quite get me, and I go turn on one of the computers in the waiting room. \u00c2\u00a0They have two public computers to keep people from getting too bored. \u00c2\u00a0And sure enough, right as the first little windows flag shows up in the boot cycle, the door opens and the nurse walks in.<\/p>\n
After all that waiting, the injection was really easy. \u00c2\u00a0I’m glad I got instruction, b\/c I would have screwed some things up. \u00c2\u00a0I would have pushed the needle in too far. \u00c2\u00a0And not done it at the correct angle. \u00c2\u00a0As is, I didn’t really do it at the right angle.<\/p>\n
Pushing the needle in is painless. \u00c2\u00a0As in, I couldn’t actually feel the needle enter my skin. \u00c2\u00a0It was weird that way. \u00c2\u00a0Injecting the IFN stung a bit. \u00c2\u00a0I had to do it slowly. \u00c2\u00a0I did the first half, then I did the rest.<\/p>\n
After I did the injection I had this 5 minute spurt of energy, optimism, and other kinds of good feelings. \u00c2\u00a0It was partly b\/c it was over, and it was soooo much easier than I thought it would be. \u00c2\u00a0But it was also probably partly chemical. I’m sure there were a lot of endorphins, or adrenaline or whatever that my brain pumped out when my brain groked that i *really* was about to stick a needle in me. \u00c2\u00a0It was so weird to be looking down and think “I’m going to stick this needle into my stomach…” \u00c2\u00a0and then to do exactly that.<\/p>\n
Train ride sucked, but not that bad. \u00c2\u00a0I got the headaches for real right as we turned the corner to the apt. \u00c2\u00a0I got some chills, but not that bad. \u00c2\u00a0I should transition to a mild fever shortly. \u00c2\u00a0But overall, not so bad. \u00c2\u00a0Not as bad as restarting. \u00c2\u00a0Which is interesting because I am at the same dose that I was at for the second two weeks of IV, I just take it 3 times per week, rather than 5 times. \u00c2\u00a0I guess the body doesn’t absorb as much when the IFN isn’t mainlined into the vein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The calm surrounding restarting the drugs evaporated about two hours before I had to head up there. \u00c2\u00a0I started getting headachey and overheated. \u00c2\u00a0I tried everything to make it go away (eating, drinking, pain killer.) it wouldn’t go away b\/c it was psychosomatic. \u00c2\u00a0This was happening a bit in PDX. My Dr there explained to … Continue reading Self Injection Day 1: I learned how to shoot up!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[31,26,11,38,39,13],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-update","tag-brooklyn","tag-comfort","tag-interferon","tag-learning","tag-pain","tag-side-effects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}