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David Margileth, M.D.: Most patients do not have much of a clue about their chemotherapy
experience. Let's walk through a typical chemotherapy drug regimen and see what that means on a
day-to-day basis.
I have often said to patients that the first chemotherapy is often the most nerve-racking,
but in general, they come into the office, we will often get a blood count to make sure
that their blood counts are okay for the chemotherapy. We will then have an IV started by the nurse,
either in their arm or through a peripheral port. Several bags of medicine that we call
pre-medication will then be given including medicines to prevent nausea and vomiting,
which are superb these days, and medicines to prevent allergic reactions to the chemotherapy.
Then depending on what chemotherapy one is on, several bags of the chemotherapy medicines
are hung and dripped in one by one and at the end of that session, one goes home and
we often have women that then go to lunch. So, it's a very anticlimactic experience for
most women since we don't see much toxicity during the chemotherapy infusion itself.