My cancer diary:
Saturday - May 26, 2001
[total: day 111][chemo-cycle 3: day 9]

"It's day nine of the third chemo-cycle. That means driving to the hospital to get an infusion of Bleomycin.
When Andrea drives me to the hospital we are not quite sure whether the doctors will really vote for the infusion.

We arrive at the ward and nurse W. walks us into an empty room where we should wait. Ten minutes later B. arrives and we learn that he has been on night duty. He takes a blood sample and asks us to wait. The blood sample will be brought to the laboratory. As soon as the numbers are returned we could start. Although it might take some time as it's Saturday.

Time passes as we wait. About an hour and a half later the nurse appears to tell us that the doctor will soon arrive. My blood numbers justify the infusion. They are just searching my file to get the exact dose of cytotoxica. About thirty minutes later we are told that my file can't be found. It seems as if B. has taken it with him when he left.

Another thirty minutes later an unknown doctor arrives. As it's Bleomycin today and as the dose of it is always 30 mg for testicular cancer patients we could proceeed. He lays an arm catheter for the infusions. He will not start with the Bleomycin immediately as had done all the other doctors. He will first wait until half a liter of sodium chloride is in.

So it's another delay. After the infusion of sodium chloride we have to wait for thirty minutes as the doctor is the only one on duty right now and as he had to go to an emergency patient at another hospital building.

When he eventually returns he starts with the Bleomycin. I ask the nurse for some milk as it has proven to help a lot in terms of nausea for me. It turns out that the doctor also wants to succeed the Bleomycin with an infusion of sodium chloride. This will be the last delay for today.

All in all this short visit to the hospital has taken about five hours. I am totally exhausted and only want to go to bed. So the day ends in resting a lot and sleeping at home."

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PS: This diary reflects just my very own opinion. - You might be also interested to read further details in doerings.net general section about testicular cancer.