Day 0, First cycle of Gemcitabine

Yesterday as usual, was another flat out day in hospital.
Got to the day ward with Sarah at around 9:30am and had a line put in my left arm.
Thankfully that went well and the cannula slid in first attempt.
Next up two units of platelets so I could go into surgery and have a new PICC line installed without serious bleeding.
My platelet count was a new record for me "2"! Even the surgeon said he'd never seen one so low.
(That's around 1/200th of the normal level for a male)
The two units would have bumped it up to around twenty, enough to perform the procedure without too much bleeding.
So we then headed off to the theatre to get the new line put in. As usual for me and PICC lines it didn't go well.
After finally getting the line into position the surgeon decided that it was too tight in the vein and therefore posed a risk of clotting. He removed the new PICC line and started over again on my left arm. That went in quite easily, but as he worked on the left arm the right arm began to bleed again and a pressure bandage was quickly applied to the small hole in my arm where the blood was pouring straight from the vein.

It's left a lovely big bruise and an outline of the original dressing on my arm. Who needs tattoos?
Once back at the day ward we put in another unit of blood to keep my counts up.


Note the tiny hole in the middle that goes
into the vein and from there the PICC line
made it's way to my lungs.
(before it was scrapped)

Then back in again today where upon I received my first cycle of Gemcitabine. Along with more blood and platelets. So far so good. I'm waiting for the nausea to start. It may never come, That's certainly the hope. I guess I'll know by this time tomorrow. I have plenty of drugs to counter it, so not too worried.
There's other side effects like sore throats etc. But the worse will be the neutropenia (low white cell and neutrophil count) that could leave me open to life threatening infections. Sarah and I shall have to be super diligent. Neutropenic sepsis can kill you in a matter of hours.

I'll post again once I see any changes.   ..Ron