Tuesday 5 October 2010

5 October 2010 - Chemotherapy Unit, QE Hospital

Today Deb had her first session of the new chemotherapy - PCV. I write this at 3:00pm and Deb is upstairs in bed asleep. I guess the tiredness and fatigue caused by the chemo has already kicked in.

This morning Deb first of all had a meeting with a nurse in the Chemotherapy Unit at the Cancer Centre,QE Hospital. The nurse explained the method of treatment, the possible side effects and provided Deb with a card giving 24 hour contact numbers in case there are problems.

The chemotherapy is a combination of 3 drugs. The first, Vincristine (the 'V' in PCV) was administered at the Cancer Centre by intravenous drip. This took about 10 minutes and the nurse stayed with Deb throughout the treatment and periodically checked the drug was still going directly into the vein. (Disturbingly the bag with the chemo in had a sign on it saying 'Fatal if taken other than intravenously'.) We then went to the pharmacy and picked up the other drugs to take home:

Lomustine (or CCNU, the 'C' of PCV). 4x4mg tablets to be taken this evening.
Procarbazine (the 'P' of PCV). One 50mg tablet in the evening and 2x50mg tablets in the morning for 10 days.
Ondansetron. Anti-nausea tablet to be taken half an hour before the lomustine and 12 hours after.
Domperidone. Anti-nausea tablets to be taken as required.
Senna laxative tablets - presumably one (or all) of the chemotherapy drugs can cause constipation.

So far so good. Lets see how this goes.