Chemo #8 ~ The Allergic Reaction

Cindy:

So it was another Monday of chemo and we were hoping it would hurry up and be done so we could do our Monday after chemo ritual which is to hit the casino for the few hours after chemo when she's still feeling good.  She was on the folfox cocktail which would usually run over 4hrs and then she'd go home with the chemo bag for 46 hrs.  Usually I would sit in the room while she got chemo and just run out to get her a snack or lunch but this particular day I had quite a few things to do within the hospital which ended up taking me over an hour to finish.  I came back to the room to find a couple doctors and several nurses filling the room and mom sitting up in the hospital bed beet red,swollen eyes and lips trying to catch her breath.  What was happening? She was having a severe allergic reaction to the Oxaliplatin, on what would have been her 8th chemo which is not as uncommon as you may think.  As one nurse put her on 4 liters of oxygen, the other pushed Benadryl through her line. About an hour later the swelling had begun to look better and the doctor informed us they would be discontinuing the Oxaliplatin. The lucky thing in all of this is my mom hadn't fallen asleep like she usually does during chemo. Because had she fallen asleep the Oxaliplatin would have continued to infuse and she wouldn't have had the chance to pull the call light and let them know her throat was closing up.  We were very lucky that day and now we just eat and do anything we have to do after chemo. This is what she looked like once most of the swelling had gone down.