Here we go! Cycle 1

I'm up and awake early - wish I was more of a morning person like this usually (yes Dave and Gemma I can already hear your eye rolls and your 'I'd like to see that - when pigs fly' comment from here!).
I put some music on and of course fairy lights and I'm ready for battle. I grab my chemo bag which by the time I've put all my books, magazines, socks, cardigan, and the kitchen sink in - it feels like a seven kilo carry on bag for Jetstar! Of course all this prepping makes me late - despite being up super early, we arrive at my first appointment 15 minutes late...whoops!

Mum and I walk around the chemotherapy day suite as my nurse Tora give us a tour. She tells us to pick any chair we like the look of. Mum and I walk as if we are on a plane - window seat or aisle? After careful deliberation we choose a seat that's near a tv as we think Dad might like to watch it. But as soon as we sit down we are instantly dissatisfied with our choice - we soon become ' those people' changing seats to a nice window view of a very rainy, cloud filled day. I tell mum to play it cool - as we are the new chemo kids on the block and just want to fit in! haha despite the fact that I am an easy 30 years younger than any other patient in here!

The day is long and I end up being in the chemo suite for about eight hours. As its my first time, they have to do my infusion very slowly just in case I have a reaction to it. I get lots of visitors in this time. From the pharmacist (who explains my seemingly complicated medication routine for the next ten days), various nurses, youth support as well as the beautiful Steph! Who came across in her lunch break and brought me some pretty sunflowers too!

She takes over whilst Mum and Dad go grab some lunch. We keep the plane theme going and work out where I could be travelling in the time it takes me to finish this super slow snail pace infusion. We work out that it will take about five hours and we will be heading to Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia - maybe I can swim with some whale sharks...if I'm lucky. It's lovely to see her and makes the day go that much faster.

My chemo regime goes over three weeks. So this is day 1 of 126 or 18 weeks. (Hmmm maybe I won't count down until that sounds a little shorter!). In the first week I have three sessions of chemotherapy, followed by one week of injections (which I have to do myself - eeek!) to keep my white blood cells up, then the third week is a rest week where hopefully my body and white cell count would have recovered. Then I do this six times over - sounds easy...right?

Finally I can go home from the day suite and have a good sleep. The next few days I go back for my other two sessions to swap out my slow release pump for - you guessed it, another slow release pump!

So far the only side effects I'm having is fatigue and that gross 'chemo' taste in my mouth where everything tastes like nothing! Besides that I'm trekking on just fine.

Courage is moving forward despite fear!