I was driving down Fremont yesterday and told Ethan about an unexpected experience I had this week. I had a few puzzles I wanted to share with the Mercy Oncology Infusion Center waiting room since I no longer needed them. The moment I parked near the building and stepped out with a few puzzles I felt a weird mixture of emotions.  Interestingly, there are some good memories as well as bad, but immediately I felt kind of sick to my stomach.  I also felt a sense of dread over going into that building.    

I’ve discovered there are so many emotional effects of having cancer that I never expected. I certainly didn’t expect that emotional trigger over going into the Infusion Center. I assume my memories of the days following chemo are the underlying cause for those emotions. The days when I hurt all over and nothing seemed to touch the pain. “Normal” pain medication did nothing for it. The oncology office eventually sent me to the supportive care doctor to find a better treatment option for the pain since giving up on chemo was not an option. I really wasn’t sure I could survive 6 rounds of chemo with that kind of pain. The doctor suspected my fibromyalgia may have had a flare up with the chemo causing nerve pain. Treatments were a little more bearable after better pain medication but I still had to use things like warm baths and a massage gun on my legs to distract myself from pain when it would come back before I could take more medication. There were usually 2 days that food tasted awful with a metallic taste a few days after each chemo session and didn’t smell great either.  Thankfully the anti-nausea medication helped with upset stomach symptoms.  I was always thankful when day 8 rolled around after chemo and I felt more like myself.

Surprisingly, I was always in good spirits on my chemo infusion days and didn’t really mind going to the Infusion Center. I knew I needed to fight this disease with everything I had. I heard tough statistics that those who had surgery as their only treatment didn’t usually make it past 5 years and knew I certainly wasn’t giving up.  

Several things helped make my chemo days good ones. Ethan was by my side for every single treatment. I had plenty of other offers from people willing to go to chemo with me, but he wanted to be there. If I was sleeping, he quietly sat by my side and read or worked on writing from his computer. If I was awake, he was offering to bring me snacks or drinks, go get an extra pillow for my back, go pick up lunch, talk, or play a game if I wanted. He was great for morale and kept the nurses entertained with his sense of humor! I quickly learned that the infusion center was a great place to minister to others in little ways. You didn’t have to recite scripture or act “spiritual”  to make a difference. I could offer a few encouraging words and offer to pray for someone over the next few weeks as they started their own chemo journey and then check back with them the next time if I saw them again. Sometimes others didn’t have someone to keep them company (there weren’t even enough chairs for each patient to have a guest with them). Some patients just got dropped off at the door and were thrilled to have someone to talk to during their chemo. Patients seemed to warm up faster to another patient or family member than they did to a chaplain that made the rounds each time I was there. 

We quickly discovered that the staff were amazing and Ethan loved to try to make them laugh and smile. I was always appreciative of how many things the nurses did to ease my mind. They answered my questions about side effects of chemo, offered extra pillows, gave encouragement, hooked up multiple IV bags of premedication & chemo drugs and answered questions about what each bag contained, and watched over a large number of patients to make sure no one had an allergic reaction. We loved these nurses and wanted to make their job just a little more pleasant so we thanked them and told them how much we appreciated them.  We formed relationships with certain nurses and looked for them each time I came for treatment. I hope we made as big of a difference to them as they made to us. 

Yes, chemo was really hard. I don’t know how long I might continue to have unsettled emotions or an upset stomach when I go into that building, but as I’m writing this I also know I have so much to be thankful for.