Awkward

Chemo went okay. It took about 8 hours.

The whole thing was a little surreal.

As we sat there, we had nurses coming to administer each medication, one at a time.

They would check the bag, check my name, check my date of birth, sign the bag and put it in.

There was lots and lots of saline.

And an odd assortment of other medications.

When it came time for the chemo, the nurse brought a big bag of green fluid.

And she brought two friends.

They had me look at the bag, checked my name, checked my date of birth, they signed and I signed.

And then they started the drip.

All three women surrounded me and stood there.

Awkward.

They were worried about the side effects of the medication and they wanted to be ready should anything happened.

As I was sitting there, they kept asking me all these questions.

Do you have a headache?

Do you have a tickle in your throat?

Do you feel like you need to throw up?

It was not comforting. What if I had to say yes?

After about 10 minutes they didn't see any kind of reaction, so they left me to finish.

After the actual chemo medication was administered, they came and changed out the needle before giving me the next medication.

It seemed strange, so I asked them why? They said that the chemo medicine was poison and corroded the metal of the needle as they gave it to me. They changed the needle after it was finished because they didn't want to risk it breaking off and entering my body.

What the heck?

And it occurred to me that I had made this conscious choice to put poison in my body. Actual poison. That has the possibility of doing some serious damage to my body.

All so I could kill something that the doctors say might eventually kill me. Let's be honest, I'm just taking their word for it. It doesn't hurt. It isn't causing me pain. I have no symptoms. It's a dark spot on medical test.

I guess I am realizing so much of this is about having faith. Why is that so hard?