Seeing my chemotherapy doctor at Building D

Another visit to St Vincent's today, and more blood donated to medical science :)

First stop was a new building for me at St Vincent's, Building D, and the cancer centre there. This appointment was with an oncology doctor, to assess me for my chemotherapy "receipe" and to discuss my treatment. Once again, Claire was there to support me.

After lots of questions and a quick medical checkup, it was determined that I will have three four-hour chemo sessions in Weeks 1, 4 and 7. I'm being given the biggest and baddest chemo drug they have, and we were walked through the treatment, side effects, and actions to take if things go off the rails. Quite daunting. If my temperature goes over 38 degrees, I am to come straight to emergency. Don't call, just come in. This is due to my immunity system being comprimised by the chemotherapy so any bug I may catch could be very serious for me. Once I start, anyone visiting the house will be asked to sanitise their hands and wear a mask. Apologies in advance, but it's to protect me.

After talking through a long list of things to consider and make decisions on, I was lucky enough to win some more free blood tests! I'm feeling so lucky, so it was off to find St Vincent's Pathology. The cancer centre reception told us it was on the ground floor of building D, so off we set to find it. Mmmm, couldn't find it, so we asked someone else, and they suggested it was in the basement of building C. Ok, off we go! Nope, we eventually we found it on level 1, of building B. On my next visit, I'll do my public service and let all the staff in the hospital know where their pathology department is, as I found it!

Lovely guy in Pathology; he was very quiet. He obviously sticks many needles in people everyday and asked me which arm I wanted blood drawn from. I suggested he was probably more qualified to make that decision, so he went for my writing arm. While he was drawing blood I got to ask a few questions about how much he needs, and why that much, and he started to smile and talk and tell me all about it. I'm pretty new to all of this stuff so I was genuinely interested. At the end he told me had drawn 12 millilitres into two vials that he showed me. 

After this, Claire and I found a coffee place in the sun at the hospital, before driving home. 

So, everything is now set for next week. It all starts on Monday. 

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