The HSCT Chronicles: Days 1-5

I have never been so sick.

That is my overwhelming thought when I think of my first few days undergoing HSCT treatment.  Luckily, it only lasted for a night and day, but that is enough, thank you very much!

Day 1

I arrived at the hospital at 8:30 am and was immediately hooked up to a drip to provide me with fluid prior to the chemotherapy treatment.  This drip was in my arm for 1 1/2 days and also added to it were the various medicines that I would need to counterbalance the chemo.  I had the chemo in the afternoon.  The only thing that I felt with the chemo as it was going in was something that I had already heard about: ‘wasabi nose’.  Basically, a hot, burning sensation that went up into my nose, causing my eyes to stream. Luckily the chemo drip was only in for an hour but, by then, I had two cannulas for various medicines which I had to keep in for the rest of the time that I was in the hospital.

Apart from the stress of going to the loo, which I had to do frequently due to the constant fluids going in to try and flush out the chemo, the rest of Day 1 was pretty uneventful.  Going to the toilet meant having to drag the bags of medicines with me whilst trying hard not to tangle my various tubes up with the cables attached to the drip stand.

Tea (bean shepherd’s pie) then bed meant the end of the first day… but I didn’t know what was to come.  Maybe I should have known after I was told by a nurse ‘don’t bet on getting lots of sleep tonight’.

Day 2

As day 1’s night ended and day 2 started, the sickness started.  Let’s just say that it was BAD and lasted pretty much non-stop from 1 am – 9 am.  When the nurse looked at my notes she made some mention about how anti-sickness medicine had not been added to my various drips.  So I didn’t get any until the doctor did her rounds later on day 2 and spent the whole day feeling queasy and bloated from all the fluids.  On top of that, I had had no sleep the night before due to machines going off, the cannulas and the sickness, so day 2 was a write-off.  I slept in between observation checks and going to the loo, declined any food until tea (half a plate of Quorn chilli) then slept from 8 pm until 7:30 am when I was woken for a cup of tea.

Days 3-5

After my fab night’s sleep on Tuesday night, I felt so, so much better.  Still queasy throughout the day, but nowhere near as bad as I had felt before.  I concentrated on drinking as much as I could and tried to eat a bit of toast for brekkie.  One of my cannulas was taken out and the other was unhooked from the drip.  I was free!  As I was no longer getting fluids, I could move around as needed (albeit stiffly, as I hadn’t moved much in the previous days except to go to the loo).  Final checks showed that I had a rapid heart rate (that had apparently been present for most of the time that I was there, since the chemo), so I had to have an ECG before home.  This trace confirmed that everything was looking normal and they thought that the rapid heart rate might just be because of all the stress my body had been through.  Final medication checks, my last cannula was taken out and then I could go home.

Home has been fine and it has been lovely to get back into my bed and see my gorgeous family.  My husband had made so much effort to tidy and clean the house whilst I was away, despite working every day himself.  For the past couple of days that I have been home, I have been feeling very slightly queasy with a small appetite, but this seems to have been kept in check with small meals, lots of fluid and Gaviscon.  The hospital has given me some anti-nausea meds to take as I need, but I haven’t felt that I have desperately needed to, which is good.  I have spent the past couple of days resting, sleeping, reading and keeping on top of the house, just to make sure it is as clean as can be!  I am a bit paranoid about getting any germs so have avoided stroking the cats and order my kids to use anti-bac hand gel as soon as they’re in the door 🙂

I have had the chance to have a chat with the haematology nurse that has been assigned to me.  I fed back about the mistake with the anti-sickness medication and she said that she would definitely feed it back so it doesn’t happen again.  It bloody well better not, that was the worst experience I have had in a long, long time!  She confirmed that I am to return to the hospital tomorrow (Saturday, 2nd November), ready for daily injections before my stem cell harvest on Wednesday or Thursday next week. I have been warned that the side effects of these are often bone pain, which I am not looking forward to, fingers crossed I’ll be ok.

No sign of hair loss yet, but it is early days.  I have read that it is often 2 weeks after the first chemo session, so I have hats and wigs ready for when it does.

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So that is it! I’ll be back to report back on how my injections and harvest go over the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I will attach my YouTube video that I recorded right after the chemo… little did I know what was going to happen to me that night in regards to the sickness! I should add that I am a very novice YouTuber, so apologies for the rubbish camera (my phone), the shaking and the very unflattering thumbnail! 😀

Until next time,

If you would like to read more about my HSCT treatment, previous blog posts are:

HSCT – My Next Step

The HSCT Chronicles: Telling the Kids

The HSCT Chronicles: To Wig or Not to Wig

The HSCT Chronicles: It Starts!