Didn't go so well

Back from my treatment this afternoon, and it was a bit of a doozey. It went OK at first with the usual anti-nausea drugs I get first, but I didn't immediately fall asleep this time. Then came the Hercepton, which went fine.

Then I got the Taxotere. At first it was just a slow drip and the nurse stayed in the room to make sure I wouldn't have any adverse reaction. After about 15 minutes, she said she would increase the drip, and no sooner did she sit back down when I started feeling a bit flushed and there was a bit of tightness in my chest. Mom said my face got red and my eyes lost color and my hands went pale. About the time the nurse asked if I was OK for the second time, boom! My chest tightened like an accordion! She turned off the flow on IV drip and called for help. Suddenly there was another nurse putting oxygen tubes in my nose, the first nurse was putting one of those finger pulse-readers on me, and a doctor came in the room and listened to my breathing through a stethoscope, then my regular doctor came in ... there were about half a dozen medical personnel in the room all checking on me, doing this and that.

My heart rate went up to about 100 beats per minute and didn't come down much further in the half-hour I waited there. It was all kind of scary there for a bit, but the staff all seemed to know exactly what to do, so that helped keep me from panicking. They said this happens about once a month.

I'm back home and feeling OK now. Have some medicine to take to help keep any allergic reaction from popping up again. I'm tired though, so probably will be taking tomorrow off. I didn't get much of the Taxotere, so the side effects shouldn't be too bad.

I go back in next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that for the Herceptin. On the second Tuesday, I'll visit again with my oncologist and lay out another plan for treatment. It could be Taxol instead, but that's in the same family as Taxotere, so I could have the same reaction to it. So I guess we'll see.

All in all, this one was an interesting day.