Unfortunately I did not get photos
of my IV drug treatment until the very last one, so I'm
pretty jaded, fat, cranky, and tired in these pictures.
I really just wanted to get the heck out of there as
fast as possible, but I know that hardly anybody knows
what chemo or other IV treatments might look like until
they get there so I figured I ought to get some pictures
taken. Pfft! I know that personally I had no
clue at all what any of it would be like, so hopefully
these photos are helpful to somebody else in that same
situation.
Here I am in the waiting
room of the oncologist's office... with my bag
full of busywork that I never actually do (being
narcoleptic the benedryl they give with some IV
treatments utterly knocks me out) and the first
of the two energy drinks that I usually downed
just to stay somewhat functional.
Here, at least (oncology
offices are probably at least a little different
in their operating procedures), after a decent
wait in the lobby they take you to a room in the
back with a lot of recliners, a sort of medical
supply end table for each one, a nursing
station, and a snack bar. Unfortunately I
couldn't get a shot of the entire room since I
had to avoid shooting other patients or hospital
employees.
This office has a fairly
decent snack bar... usually there were a couple
different kinds of cookies, a few different
kinds of chips, fruit snacks, raisins, ramen,
coffee, tea, juice, and Ensure. Since I
was so broke (and still am) the whole time, I
would sometimes pocket a box of raisins for my
chinchillas or a couple of cookies to eat later
in the day. Shhhhhh!
After you situate yourself
in the recliner with your snacks and your drinks
and your bag of busywork a nurse will come over
and take a kit out of the medical supply end
table. Now, I have a port (which I'm
keeping as long as possible) so it's fairly fast
for them to hook me up. If you don't have
a port you usually warm your arm with a heating
pad for a few minutes and then they would do the
same process but it would involve finding a vein
and setting up a regular IV instead of accessing
a port.
The kit (for people with
ports, anyhow) includes gloves, an anti-germ
scrubby thingy, and a stabby port accessing
thingy.
In order to properly
sanitize the area before accessing the port they
must use the anti-germ scrubby thingy for a
minimum of thirty seconds.
Now I am shiny and clean
(or at least two inches of me is).
This is where they use the
stabby port accessing thingy to access my port.
This is difficult to photograph well.
Basically you just take a deep breath and they
push the thingy into your port. Honestly I
don't even feel that part but your mileage may
vary.
A better photo of the
stabby port accessing thingy... the needle bit
doesn't stay in the whole time; they lock the
thingy in place and then disengage the needle
somehow leaving just a little tube in there.
After they access the port
they draw out a small amount of blood to make
sure everything is hooked up properly.
Sometimes they'll draw blood this way to run
labwork and make sure you're okay for treatment
that day.
When they're sure the line
is set up properly they flush the line with some
kind of clear fluid that keeps the port from
clogging up. Some people can taste it when
this happens, and others (myself included) can
smell it. It smells like antiseptic or
toner... and it's very odd to smell something
that isn't exposed to the air (or your nose) at
all.
This is an older photo but
I'm including it because it clearly shows the
flushy stuff.
After the flushy stuff has
all been flushed they detach it...
... and then they hook you
up to a regular IV line. Usually you get
some amount of pre-treatment drugs (like
steroids or benedryl) to keep you from having an
adverse reaction to the treatment itself.
... and then you wait...
... and you wait...
... and you wait...
... and then if you've
been very good after a varying amount of time
(my chemo took a few hours but my other IV
treatments took slightly less than an hour) a
nice nurse will come along...
... flush the line once
more (if you have a port) and unhook you.
Afterward (for a port)
there's just a tiny pinprick. For regular
IV lines a bit more bandaging is involved
(pressure has to be applied for a small amount
of time afterward or you get a crazy bubble
under your skin).
I tended to get round,
green Snoopy band-aids. That's the end of
my IV treatment adventure (theoretically).
Hopefully everybody kept their head and arms
inside the ride at all times... there are a
couple of people in that treatment room that
probably wouldn't mind some replacement limbs,
you know?
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