Drip...drip...drip

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Karen's first chemo treatment was, well, uneventful. It's been hard to know what to expect, despite the doctors' and nurses' careful review of everything that would happen today. We spent most of our time in pre-treatment consultations with the nurses and waiting for an available treatment room. But the "infusions" finally got underway around 3 pm today and were expected to take about 2.5 hrs.

Adriamycin, a Hawaiian Punch colored drug kicked things off, followed by a drug with a name that screams toxic (Cytoxan). With all you hear about the power of these drugs, you half expect the patient to turn green, double-over from nausea and start losing their hair as soon as the drug reaches the blood stream. But that's not the case, of course. Karen's been loaded up with anti-nausea drugs to combat the nausea and we're hopeful that they work their magic (at least until we make the 2 hr. trip back to Harrisburg). In fact, Karen might have several "good" days until her blood counts hit rock bottom and things get more difficult. Or the side effects could come on more quickly. We'll know soon enough how she reacts.

With the clinical trial Karen is participating in, there's no way to know for sure whether she is getting the clinical trial drug, Avastin, but there's certainly enough toxcicity in the other two chemo drugs to do more than enough damage to her cells -- unfortunately the good cells and the bad ones.