Scared Shitless and Suited Up: My First Day of Chemo

A note before we get into it: For this month, I am forcing myself to put out a minimum of two blog posts a week about my cancer journey. These won’t be in sequence order; whatever my mind wanders to when I sit to write is what I will share. Today it wandered here.

You talking about somebody putting on a brave face but scared shitless.

That was me. My first day of chemotherapy.

I had the luck of starting chemo in November, the Monday before Thanksgiving. Family and friends poured into town to support me, pray over me, and to lay eyes on me. I had already done some of the hard part; I cut my beautiful sister locs before it was no longer my choice to do so.

I wanted control.

That was the magic word that kept appearing in my counseling sessions.

To prepare for chemo, I had to get a port, a full-body bone density test, an EKG, and probably something else I’m forgetting. The night before I barely slept; it felt like my brain wouldn’t shut off and all the scenarios I was imagining kept playing out in my head. I had Googled, WebMD’d, and ChatGPT’d so many times with different questions.

None of it prepared me.

You're talking about the person who showed up to every appointment with at minimum three people in tow to hear the same conversations as me and reshare them. I don’t know if you guys know, but getting a cancer diagnosis is a gut punch. I mean, one to the lower belly that takes the wind out of you for minutes, not seconds. I had learned that at some point during appointments, when topics were broached, I would go somewhere else. I don’t know if that was a protection mechanism, but our workaround was to bring the crew.

And the crew came. Locked and loaded with their own list of questions for me and for them as caretakers.

But back to my first day of chemo. We knew I had to travel light, so my mom and bestie went with me.

You’d think this was a playdate.

My bestie done introduced herself to every minority in the room and asked them their diagnosis and if this was their first treatment. That is just who she is, and I love her for it. That’s how I was introduced to Courtney and Josephina; both on their first day of chemo just like me. In that infusion room, we were strangers who didn’t need many words because we were all living the same surreal moment together. Everyone was in their own little bubble, exchanging pleasantries and just trying to take in the day.

Nineteen more weeks of this to go.

The building was very sterile, but the staff was so warm and engaging. My care started the moment Carina did my intake; she was the first bright spot in my medical support team at Texas Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders in Plano, TX. After Carina, I met my oncology nurse Ebony, who supported my chemo. She was another needed spirit; calm, she explained everything to me as she moved through what all would be administered to me that day. She told me what I should and shouldn’t expect and how to get her attention if I experienced something I shouldn’t.

Baby, once that Benadryl hit my system, it was lights out.

I don’t know how to explain the feeling of a toxic drug coursing through your veins to kill cancerous cells in your body, but it is a feeling. And that feeling can be depressing. As I felt like a fog had overcome me and that I was having an out-of-body experience, I smiled when my family asked a question or glanced in my direction. The entirety of my first infusion took about four to five hours; that’s getting blood work, meeting with my oncologist, getting clearance for infusion, and then beginning the treatment.

I came with all the snacks: some fresh and crisp grapes from H-E-B, peanut butter crackers, ginger ale, Powerade, a water bottle, pretzels, and mandarin cups. I think I ate all the fruit and crackers and drank all my drinks. It’s something about that saline flush that will make you drink anything in your vicinity to erase the taste of that…

YUCK.

I walked in and out of my infusion session, but on my way out I felt weak. I felt like this was the first day of a fight I wasn’t truly prepared for, but I was going to stand my ground for my sons and my family.

I had zero taste for food; everything tasted too sweet or like nothing. So I didn’t even attempt to eat Thanksgiving. I just drank my Powerade, water, fresh cold-pressed juices, and ate some soup. I was in bed the entire week, excluding the few times I tried to get up and sit around with family that was visiting from out of town. I managed to brush my teeth and wash my face daily, shower to change into different clothes, and climb back into bed. My bones and joints ached something terrible. I wanted the feelings of exhaustion, the fear of what would happen next (vomit or diarrhea or both), and the feeling of no control to be removed from my body.

Three things were true at the same time.

I was thankful and blessed that I had stage 1 and a plan to defeat cancer.

I was scared of what the treatment would do to me and my body.

And I was fearful of what exactly my testimony would be.

Cancer has a way of forcing one to reprioritize life and to let the BS go.

I don’t know if this tidbit of my story will help or aid someone finding out about the journey or already in it, but I hope it helps shed a light on one day in my continued walk. Whatever you learned or gleaned from this, comment below and let me know. And if you have any questions I can answer, drop those too.

You are not walking this alone.