He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from fear

After Wednesday, the effects of the dreaded 'first round of chemo' gradually lifted. Each day, I found myself feeling better and better. The feeling of bloatedness drifted away bit by bit and by Thursday I could eat just about anything I wanted without feeling any different than I would on a normal day. A few times I found myself saying: "I can't even believe I'm on chemo."

Of all the side effects I experienced thus far, I would have to say that the allergic reaction to the anti-emetics was the worst experience. The nausea was quite bad, as you can well imagine, but it only lasted a couple of days. I thought the mere choking and suffocation for an hour and a half was far more torturous than the stomach sickness. In fact, it was so torturous that I think I've become traumatized over it.

This trauma seems to present itself in my recent experiences of overwhelming paranoia that it will happen again. This paranoia seems to have been hanging over my head almost constantly since it happened. I worry in the morning, evening, night, and even wake up during sleep worrying about it. Lately I have been experiencing a little bit of dryness in the throat (which may or may not be a minor side effect of chemo). This slight dryness can send my imagination running off in a million directions if I allow it. Is it happening again? What if it wasn't the Stemitil that caused the reaction? What if I'm allergic to the chemo meds?

The paranoia mentioned above can be awful because it, in turn, causes me to become panicky. My heart races, my mind wanders, I get shaky. All because I'm scared of this terrible occurence presenting itself once again. The awful thing is that it is not only the allergic reaction I fear. It is the quality of care I will recieve when taking a reaction as such that concerns me.

You see, when I first went to the hospital in Glace Bay Monday night, as you may or may not remember me mentioning in previous posts, there was no doctor on call. I cannot explain to you how awful it felt to be suffocating and arrive to a hospital to find that no one there could help me. After then rushing from the Glace Bay hospital to the Sydney hospital (a 25 minute drive away), I was looked at like I had 1000 eyeballs by the triage nurse. Clearly, when you cannot breathe you will panic. There is no time for small talk. The nurse made me sit down while she asked me 1000 questions and urged me to "calm down" as I sat there suffering. Was this really necessary? After going through a 15 minute ordeal that I felt was completely unnecessary, I was sent to sit and wait in a room for at least another 40 minutes (again, it was a CHORE to breathe or swallow) for a doctor to come and give me a simple shot of benadyl and steroid. Do I need to be out cold or dying in order for anyone to take me serious?

So, I think my recent overwhelming paranoia and sense of panic stems not only from the allergic reaction itself, but moreso from the fear that I will not be cared for properly, as I feel I was not last Monday night. I am extremely fearful that something will happen to me and I will go to the hospital to find no doctor there again. I am fearful of waiting "patiently" while I suffer. I am fearful that something worse may happen if I have to wait again. It would be nice to know that if you are on chemotherapy and are taking an allergic reaction (or feeling anything that awful, as this IS a dangerous medication) that someone will at least come and make sure you are not dying when you come in.

The bad thing is that this happens to people all the time at these hospitals. So, please, take my word. If something like this happens to you and you are 'miffed' (as you have probably guessed that I am), please call the hospital and complain! I plan to do this first thing tomorrow morning. I didn't realize how traumatizing this experience would be to me until I experienced a week of complete uneasiness over it. If this hadn't happened, I feel that I would be feeling MUCH more content with my overall chemotherapy experience thus far.

Now ... I need to somehow find a way of dealing with this newly developed paranoia and sense of panic. So far, convincing myself that I am overreacting, taking a chance to do some deep breathing, trying my best to think rationally, and going to a comfortable, quiet spot have helped me deal with feelings of panic for the most part. I think that in order to move on from this experience, put it in the past, and stop myself from thinking about it, however, I need to somehow be reassured that I will be taken care of if anything happens to me. The first step in doing this will be to call the hospital tomorrow to complain. The second step will be to talk to Dr. MacCormick about the reaction to try to discover the root of it and how I can best avoid it happening again. The third step will be to get a list of emergency hours for all the surrounding hospitals so that I am sure not to go to one without a doctor (even though, in my opinion, all the hospitals should always have a doctor on call).

Any other ideas?