Oh no! Allergic Reaction

May 31, 2013

The day started typically, nothing to make me think this would be anything other than a shortened version of Taxol and the regular infusion of Carboplatin. All was good. Pre meds all good. Those would be anti nausea (two different kinds for me), Benadryl and steroids (to help prevent an allergic reaction), and Pepsid to coat the stomach. This takes about an hour. Next the Taxol, apparently this is the protocol, as doing the carbo before the taxol makes it harder for your blood counts to rally, who knew? They started the carbo about 12:30.


I began feeling bad, walked to the restroom and realized in addition to feeling bad, the palms of my hands were red and itchy, then the back of my throat began to itch. I stood up and was light headed. The nurses station is right next to the rest rooms...great design! I walked out, saw my nurse (great male nurse named Spencer) and said, "Spencer, I'm really feeling badly." He jumped up, grabbed me and had me sit down. From this point on my account is pretty hazy. Suffice it to say they got me back to my little room and began working on me. By this time I'm hot, sweating, and feel like I'm having a very bad case of heart burn. They called the CERT which I think stands for the cardiac emergency response team. At one point there were about 10 folks working on me, several doctors, lots of nurses. They've paged my dr. My blood pressure is being taken close to every minute and bottoms out at 68 over 35. The great news is at this point, I began coming out of the reaction.

Once I started feeling better I told Spencer, "well I guess I let you all have a real life experience for what you train for!" The good news is, my heart is fine and I'm feeling back to normal. The not so good news is I only got 10 minutes of what should have been an hour drip of the carbo. Dr Tung and I will discuss what happens next and what are the alternatives
Several God moments occurred. Nurse Spencer shared with me before we started what the symptoms were when you have a reaction to the chemo. I was in the out patient hospital and not a doctors office when the reaction occurred, and because of very dedicated drs and nurses who responded quickly I am home and feeling fine.
The journey continues...