Day 1 of Cycle 1

My first day of chemo went relatively well. It didn’t start off very good thanks to a misinterpretation on my part.

My medical port wasn’t drawing back blood when they first tried it. My nurse, who was extremely nice the whole day, went to get another nurse to try it again. She couldn’t get it to draw blood back either.

I overheard them talking about getting the X-Ray from the hospital to confirm and then possibly trying again. I interpreted trying again as doing another port surgery. That with the added anxiety of it being my first day I began to feel like I was going to pass out. I went white, started sweating like crazy and began to feel dizzy. I took one of my medications (Ativan) which helps for anxiety and nausea. I felt better in a couple minutes, but a bit embarrassed. Not the type of start the big strong, young man wanted to get off too lol.

I was later told my port was working and not drawing back blood was somewhat common. The rest of the day went smooth. They pumped a ton of stuff in me including my Etoposide and Platinum along with a test portion of Bleomycin. I get another test of Bleomycin today before getting the full dose Wednesday. From what I read by my brothers at the tc.cancer.forum I know the Bleomycin days can sometimes be the worse with flu like symptoms likely to follow.

I was at the treatment center nearly six hours, but filled my time watching a movie, a Pawn Stars marathon and we even got a chance to Skype with Ben for a few minutes.

After leaving I was a little tired and tried to take a nap, but it didn’t make me feel better, it was almost making me feel worse. I decided to eat something which did make me feel better.

I ended up watching the 1000th episode of Raw with a few buddies and it was a good time. Probably won’t see many of them much until this is over. It was a good show and if you can’t tell by they name of my blog I’m a huge pro wrestling fan. I know, I know, bring on the jokes. I can’t help it though. It’s part of my DNA and I’ve been watching on and off since I was in elementary school. Sometimes I’ll go away for a few years, but it always pulls me back. A co-worker of mine Drew made me a flash drive with a ton of old wrestling on it, which I’m sure I will enjoy during my treatment.

In case you wondering where the name of blog comes from, it’s pro wrestling. It’s named after the wrestler The Rock’s catchphrase Team Bring It. The Rock is a very inspirational guy and just a great human in general. He often send out inspirational tweets on his Twitter account with the hashtag #TeamBringIt.

On the day of my orchiectomy surgery (removal of the testicle) I wore my ‘I Bring It’ Rock t-shirt. I went into surgery with a cocky (but full of anxiety) attitude of I will beat this. I have been kicked down a few times since and gotten back up a few times, but I’m still bringing the cocky (with a touch of anxiety) attitude to chemo. I will beat this because I Bring It.

Not much else to report. Hoping Day 2 goes as well as Day 1. Thanks for reading.

Day 2 preview: Battling a pretty bad case of the hiccups as I type this. Might need to pull up that episode of Phineas and Ferb where they try to get rid of Isabella’s hiccups. It sounds dumb but man these things are annoying.