Tuesday 9 April 2013

Chemotherapy at home

Following last week's delay I went ahead with my latest chemotherapy treatment yesterday and today. As planned, rather than staying in hospital overnight I had a 'Baxter Infusor' pump fitted that meant that I could return home yesterday before popping back into the hospital this afternoon to have the empty pump removed.
 
Overall my first experience of the infusor has been very positive. Not only is it a whole lot nicer not having to stay on the oncology ward overnight, but I also slept better for being in my own bed. The only issue was that I still had to spend from 9:30am until around 5:00pm yesterday at the hospital. This is a little frustrating because more than 90% of that time was simply waiting around, first for the blood test result, then for the chemotherapy to mixed and loaded into the infusor and then for a nurse to fit it to me. Still I had work to do and a book to read and was able to pop out of the hospital to a pub for lunch, pity I'm not drinking as a beer would have gone down very well! In fact the waiting yesterday would have been pretty much just the same had I been staying in hospital overnight so having the pump didn't cause any additional delay.
 
Given that this first time has gone well I should be able to have all future cycles of this particular chemotherapy at home and that's a big plus for me!
 
 
 
 
 
 

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