oops. we bought a trailer tent

oops. we bought a trailer tent, originally uploaded by thereyougothen.

first 4mls of herceptin

first 4mls of herceptin, originally uploaded by thereyougothen.

well, they finally let me have one of those beeping machines.

it was fine. it took 3 needles, and it lasted 8 hours, but it was fine. i managed to get a lot of knitting done in that 8 hours, and reading, and whinging about how long i was there for.

they said "stay 6 hours", I assumed that was worse case scenario. er, nope. it was stay 6 hours after the infusion started. (infusion? who the hell do they think they're kidding? infusion? this ain't no cup of tea!)

so, we got there at 09.30. three needles (ouch) later the cannula was in. the drug finally appeared from the pharmacy at 11.30. so i was attached to the beeping machine from about 10.30 until 5.30. lovely.

i had no nasty side effects, and my blood pressure was fine all three times it was checked, so I can haz more herseptin.

but... remember the heart scans that i hate because they are so awful? well, I have to have more of them. great. thanks. my ejection fraction (did I explain that?) is 53%. that is at the "low end of normal" and according tot he doctor who spoke to me on wednesday, it's 2% lower than their lower limit for herceptin. so, becasue I didn't hit the 55% mark (I was 53% both before and after chemo) I have to have my heart scanned after 6 weeks, instead of 3 months of herceptin. i'm not entirely sure if this means *every* 6 weeks, or just a couple of extra times. this also means that i might have to have my third herceptin at the hospital instead of at home. blah.

next time will only be 2 hours though. or so they said....

EDIT I should say that that was only the first 4mls, the actual dose is 250mls.