First day of chemo

So I am at the hospital right now, getting my first interferon treatment. My schedule is packed for the next month. I have treatment every day Monday to Friday for the next 4 weeks; blood tests twice a week for each week and a consultation with the oncologist once a week. They said by this evening I'm going to start feeling like I have the flu. It affects everybody differently so there's no telling how it lasts. I could have periods between the treatments when I feel better/less sick. This is more likely to happen once I am finished with the induction (ie. "every-day") treatment phase and move into the maintenance phase. I'm not going to be working for the next month. There's really no point - I'm spending a good part of each day here and I'm supposed to get lots of rest.

After the first month I only need to come once a week for blood work and once a month to see the oncologist. I will be self-administering the interferon. The needles are supposed to be like an epi-pen. It doesn't sound too bad.

There are a lot of sick people here, but it is a fairly upbeat environment. The volunteers are fantastic! Many of them are cancer survivors and are quite compassionate.

Oh! I am getting a funny taste in my mouth. I wonder if that is the drug? Other than that I don't feel any different.

There is a home care nurse who comes to see me once a week to change the dressing on the PICC line. I had that inserted last week and I only have to have it during the induction phase. I'm tring to figure out how I can incorporate it into a Halloween costume *grins* The nice thing about the PICC is that I won't have to have any needles for my treatments or for the blood draws twice a week. I have really crappy veins, so needles are a bit of a hassle.

I'm a little bit scared, mostly about the unknown - how sick will I be? How long will it last? And always, will the cancer come back? Even so, I feel pretty optimistic over all. That might change, of course, when the vomiting starts, lol.