At North York General Hospital, we offer a pre-chemotherapy teaching class for
all our patients receiving chemotherapy for the first time.
This is a general class that will go over basic chemotherapy information as
well as its potential side effects.
These sessions are held in one of our auditoriums that are located just off of our main lobby.
I did attend the orientation to chemotherapy which I found to be very helpful.
They provide you information that you need to know both to prepare for
chemo and as you're going through chemo.
Some of that information I found useful was focusing on
the medication and how to reduce the side effects.
There's a session that they complete on diet, what you're allowed to eat and
what you're not allowed to eat. And then you also get to meet your team. You get to
meet the pharmacist, you get to meet the dietitian,
the nurses that work in the chemo lab. You also have an opportunity to tour the
chemo lab which is very helpful.
So I would highly recommend participating in that process
because that does help
to ease some the nervousness that you have.
The type of breast cancer that I was diagnosed with, they decided to do
treatments for me every other week.
The day before I come in, I have to have my blood work done.
What they're looking for there is just to make sure that your
white blood cell count and your immune system has recovered enough from
last treatment
to allow you to do another treatment.
I go to the lab on the fourth floor and they draw my blood and then they send the results here.
I'll come in on Tuesday morning
for my treatment and I go and check in across the hall,
give them my health card and they give me a bracelet
that is used to keep track of the medications in me so we match up
properly
and then they'll call me into the clinic here in the suite where they do the chemo
treatments.
They check my weight, and my temperature, my blood pressure and they check the white blood cell count
from the blood draw that was done
just make sure that I don't have a temperature and I'm healthy enough to do
treatment.
The first thing they do is they warm up your arm
so that it's easy to find the veins and it's comfortable when they're putting in the
needle.
All the staff here is very good at putting in a needle ever so terribly gently,
which does help cause needles can be a little intimidating.
And then they usually run some saline first
just make sure that you're well hydrated. Once they've confirmed your weight
and checked your number on your bracelet, they'll order up the chemotherapy itself
and depending on the treatment it can take
from an hour and a half to three hours to actually run the drugs in
through the IV line that they've put in.
How patients tolerate chemotherapy differs from one patient to another and
is very difficult to predict
who will and who will not develop a particular side effect and how
mild or severe it may be.
We generally talk about the potential risks and side effects
of a particular chemotherapy regimen
and then once patients start their treatment, if they do
develop more severe side effects, then there's always the
option and making adjustments to the dose of chemotherapy.
With respect to my chemotherapy, I've been on two separate sessions.
In the first treatment I experienced fatigue,
and quite significant fatigue through that process. Nothing that was unmanageable
but
when I was tired, I slept and was very honest with my friends and family
when I just wasn't able to do anything.
On the second set of chemotherapy that I've been through
the side effects are slightly different. Again I've experienced the fatigue
and joint pain but again
the team that you have in place helps you through that.
There's medications that you receive
to help you with the expected side effects of chemotherapy so
nausea and then
any reaction that you may have to the chemo is all managed through your team.
If you're experiencing anything that, to you, is out of the norm,
there are medications to help you deal with that. It really isn't something
that you need to suffer through unnecessarily.
So take advantage of the resources and teams that you have in place.
My name's Daniela. I'm one of the pharmacists in the clinic
and I provide education or information on the different chemotherapy regimens.
So,
on the day of your treatment when you come in, explaining
each of the medications that you're going to be getting, which side effects to look for,
how to take all of your medications at home for nausea,
and going through all the medications that you take at home.
And we just want to make sure that they're safe to take while you're on
chemotherapy.
My name is Julia and I'm the Drug Access Facilitator for the chemo clinic.
I help patients get reimbursement for medications that aren't
usually covered by the government through patient assistance programs that
they wouldn't normally know to even find.
and a lot of it involves
paperwork, insurance companies. It helps the patients
alleviate that extra stress dealing with having
chemo and cancer at the same time.
My name's Colleen and I'm the registered dietitian in the chemotherapy clinic.
My involvement is with patients while they're actively undergoing chemotherapy.
So while they're here, for as long as they're here,
they have access to me. All patients are given my phone number
and are able to contact me themselves. So many patients will call.
They phone me with questions about various topics.
Could be things like caffeine intake, could be things like probiotics,
are they good for me, are they not? I'll answer their questions on the phone.
Other patients' questions come to mind when they're here in clinic.
So they'll flag me down when they're here for their treatment.
The recommendations we made
are really keep eating and drinking as normally as you can.
There's a lot of misinformation out there about avoiding certain foods or
starting to incorporate
other foods in high doses based on the diagnosis or
based on the fact they're undergoing chemotherapy.
But what we really want to do is
tell patients now's the time to just keep eating and drinking as
normally as you can.
I'm Stacy, I'm one of the full-time secretaries that works here in the clinic and I'd be
one of the ladies that will be booking your chemotherapies,
your diagnostic tests and any of your follow-ups with your doctors while
you're here in the clinic.
When you're here for your new patient visit the first time with the
doctors, they'll bring out some orders to us
and we process those and get those all lined up for you.
That could be some diagnostic tests just to
make sure that everything is good and
setting up your first chemotherapy treatment.
Hi I'm Katherine. Hi I'm Raymond. And we're 2 of the pharmacists that work up here in the chemotherapy clinic.
Doses are pretty standard as far as how we're going to
give the first dose. But then for subsequent doses, if we need to make any
adjustments based on side effects,
we will do so. Patients really do have to provide that information to the nurses.
Let the nurse know what side effects you have experienced.
Some are more important to note than others. Since patients don't know we
say please keep a journal,
let your nurse know when you come in for treatment.
My name is Melissa and I'm the social worker for the Cancer Care Program at North York General Hospital.
A social worker counsels patients to assist with
coping with their changing roles and responsibilities
in their social life, with their families, with their employment,
with their friends. There's a lot of adapting that needs to go on while you're unwell
because your level of functioning is sometimes
not what it was before, and the responsibilities that you were doing
before you can no longer
manage. And so as the social worker I provide counseling to
assist people to adapt to these new changes.