Chemo Day Medical Update
Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
It's mostly good. I say mostly, because the nausea really hit me this past week. The main issue is keeping track of which nausea pills I can take and when. I've mentioned the schizophrenia drug, which is prescribed off-label for chemo-induced nausea. I take that for four days of chemo week. Just took one. I have two other nausea drugs, one of which I can take on chemo days if I really need it. The other I can't take on chemo days.
So how do I keep track? Well, there's a chart on a piece of paper, but you know me. If there's a complicated technology to do it, I'm doin' it!
Enter Home Assistant, an open-source home automation server. It connects to a truckload of devices, and found all of ours on the first scan. That's cool, because potentially it's a one-stop shop for controlling everything rather than using a ton of apps. But that's just the welcome side effect, as it were.
What about the meds?
I'm setting up a medicine calendar, for starters. But wait! You can do that in Google Calendar (or something similar). True, but there are a few other odd technical/security issues going on that I'm not going to get into. I'm also working on a display that I plan to mount somewhere in the kitchen to show various med times and what I should be taking. These will be triggered by automated notifications. Why yes, it *is* getting complicated. Why do you ask?
Just to add another layer to it, I plan to add NFC tags to some of the meds. I'll start with the nausea meds. Why? Well, one med can be taken again after six hours, and the other eight hours. The oncologist I spoke with today said I actually can mix them, taking the eight hour one during the day and the six hour one at night because it could cause drowsiness. Except the latter is the one I can't take on chemo days.
Enter the NFC tag. I scan the tag and up pops a notification that says something like "Nausea Med 1: Every six hours except on chemo days. Would you like a reminder in six hours?) It won't actually log that I've taken the med, which is fine, but it will send a reminder if I want. The reminder is optional because the evening pill doesn't need a reminder in six or eight hours unless things get really bad. And let's face it: I sometimes need reminders in the best of times.
Anyway, NFC tag integration is pretty easy in Home Assistant. Right now I'm sending notifications to my phone and my watch. I'm having trouble with the display I bought. Oh, it works. There's just plenty of learning curve going on.
And there's another thing. I've mentioned this before, but doing stuff like this means I'm keeping my brain engaged, and that makes all this worth it.
I mentioned that it's chemo day. I was going to take a picture of the fancy schmancy chair I had today, but they don't allow pictures inside the practice. Patient privacy, I presume. They appear to have several different models of chemo chairs. I've had a different one each visit. The one last week had a built-in heater. Today's had that plus a massager and AC/USB ports. Plus, like all of the chairs, it reclines. I could *almost* get used to that.
Someone rang the bell today! Ringing the bell means the end of treatment. It was quite the event. The nurses all lined up, and they had pom-poms or noise makers. Music was going. Each nurse fell out of line and followed the patient as they walked past with their family, and then they (the patient, "they" is for privacy) rang the bell. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place.
After everything died down I opened up my phone and saw Joe Biden rang a bell today to signify the end of his radiation treatment. I see others occasionally posting that in social media. Perhaps my time will come as well.
And on that note, it's time to put chemo brain to bed.
Filed under: Cancer Sucks Life
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