The First Chemotherapy

When I was admitted to the hospital, I still had a strange amount of confidence.

I knew by then that I had cancer. I had finally understood that osteosarcoma wasn't just the name of some disease I needed to get treated — it was cancer.

But even then, I didn't really understand what that meant.

In my head, I was still thinking about treatment as something with a beginning and an end. I'd get admitted. I'd get chemotherapy. I'd get better. I'd go home.

Simple.

I was admitted to a semi-private room because we couldn't get a private one. That meant sharing the room with another patient.

On my first day, the doctors checked my vitals and then inserted a PICC line into my arm — a thin, flexible tube placed into a vein and threaded toward a larger vein near the heart. It would allow the doctors and nurses to administer chemotherapy and other medications without repeatedly putting in new IVs.

A few hours later, I was lying on the hospital bed, ready for my first chemotherapy.

And then it started.

The chemotherapy came through IV infusions, with different bags of medication being administered one after another. At that point, everything still felt new. The hospital, the nurses, the medicines, the machines — it was an entirely different world from anything I had known before.

But I was confident. This was my first session. I thought I would be able to handle it.

And, at least for the first day, nothing really happened. I could still eat. I could still talk. I could still feel like myself.

There were no major side effects yet. The only thing I remember from that first night was the nurses repeatedly coming into the room to change the chemotherapy infusions as one bag finished and another needed to be started.

I barely spoke to the girl in the bed beside me. It was my first day, after all. I didn't really know her, and I didn't know what to say.

Then came the next morning. Day two.

The doctor came in for her morning rounds, checking on each patient in the room. She asked me how I was doing.

I remember answering positively. “Yeah, it's going good. Feeling a little different, but I'm okay.”

Then she turned toward the girl beside me. She asked her how she was doing.

She didn't answer normally.

I was completely shocked. The doctor was shocked. My father was shocked.

It was only my second day of chemotherapy, and this was the first time I had seen what the illness could do to someone.

The doctors spoke to her and tried to calm her down. Eventually, things settled.

Looking back, I think she must have been suffering immensely to reach a point where she could say something like that.

But nobody really discussed it afterward. We just carried on.

Still, the atmosphere inside the room had changed.

Day two became a much quieter day for me. There was an awkwardness in the room that hadn't been there before.

And I was beginning to feel the chemotherapy myself. Whenever I tried to eat, I would start feeling slightly nauseous beforehand. That was probably the first sign that the chemotherapy was beginning to affect me.

Then, that evening, I went to sleep.

I don't remember every detail of that night.

But I remember what it did to me.

Until then, I had been confident that this was going to be a difficult journey, but one that I would get through.

Now, for the first time, I understood that there was another possibility. People could actually die.

And suddenly, the confidence I had walked into the hospital with was gone.

Day one had given me confidence. Day two took it away.

The next morning, I woke up and looked at the bed beside me.

It was empty.

A little later, another little girl arrived with her parent. She was probably only a year or two older than me. They settled into the room, and soon, her chemotherapy began.

At first, I didn't know much about her.

Then, after talking to her, I found out something that completely changed how I was feeling.

This was her last round of chemotherapy.

I was still very low on confidence after what had happened the previous day. But hearing that gave me something I desperately needed at that moment.

Hope.

Because here was someone who had gone through everything I was only beginning to experience — and she had made it all the way to the end.

I still remember how happy she looked. She was joyful.

Of course, she had been through pain. I knew that. She knew that. Everyone in that room knew that.

But there was something different about her happiness.

She knew that this was her last chemotherapy. The cycle was finally coming to an end.

And seeing that made me think:

That girl restored some of the confidence I had lost the day before.

Day two had shown me the worst possibility.

Day three showed me that there could also be an end to the suffering.

And then, just like that, my first chemotherapy session was over.

After completing the session, we were allowed to go home until the next one.

But I was leaving the hospital with a very different understanding of what had just happened.

When I had arrived three days earlier, I thought chemotherapy was simply the treatment I needed to get better. Now I knew better.

I had seen someone suffering so badly that she didn't want to continue.

I had seen someone deteriorate and never come back.

And I had also seen someone reach her final chemotherapy with a smile on her face.

In just three days, my confidence had gone from high, to almost nothing, and then back again.

It was a strange introduction to the world of chemotherapy.

And as I walked out of the hospital, one thing was clear to me:

This was going to be a long journey.

And I had absolutely no idea what was waiting for me next.