Can I start with....I TOTALLY underestimated the level of "bone weary" tired and drug side effects. If these effects are cumulative and this is only the beginning of Day 4....I am sooo hooped!!!

    But I digress...the chemo gong show first...I am gonna assume most of you are in the same boat I was when it came to a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter)..you know next to nothing.  So here is PICC 101...They numb you (thank heavens) and insert this ultrasound guided tube into your large vein near you armpit.  That sounds simple enough....until they either 1) hit a nerve and have to start all over again (talk about hot lightening bolts down your arm) 2) having to pull it out 1.5cm.. OR 3) they insert it too deep and causes irritation to everything around it....check and check!!  About an hour after having it was put in I started having really bad heartburn/acid reflux/hot frying pan with nausea that radiated like a hot curling iron inside along my mastectomy incision.....are we having fun yet??? 

     So the next day (24hrs pre-chemo) I meet with the home care nurse so she can change the dressing on my PICC and make sure is it working well....I do what I understand to be the protocol and tell her about my weird sensations...to which she says..."hmmm...just tell them in the morning before you start your chemo".  Now it has started to bring on real big "purple nurple" pinches in my right chest. (nothing consistent but bothersome all the same. 

     CHEMO DAY...I get not much sleep (3hrs maybe - refer to earlier Phobia post) but ready to do this.  I get there only to find out that I should have in fact had this PICC issue dealt with BEFORE showing up for my  chemo cocktail.  The nurses were pretty miffed (NOT AT ME...they were awesome!!!) with the "dropped ball" by everyone else along the way.  So after trying to get a doctor to come order yet another chest X-ray to see if the PICC had moved out of place...(who knew they should have X-rayed after they pulled it out too...sheesh!!)  The new x-ray shows that it is in fact still too far down and needs to be pulled back another 1.5cm.  So then they spend the next couple of hours trying to get the PICC (specialized unit) to come pull it back....finally the doctor (who was awesome) decides to do it himself....he did reassure me that even he knew NOTHING about PICC lines....he knew a ton about anatomy and the heart so he could do this...yikes!!!  I got immediate relief...amazing...(holy princess and the pea -high maintenance....lol)  So finally at 12:15 we start the first of 8 chemo cocktails....(7 to go) that was scheduled for 8am...ooppps!! 

And thus began my adventure....wait it gets better....stay tuned