On my first day of chemotherapy, I was handed a “swag bag.”

Inside: information about my pump—which, by the way, my brother aptly named Sir Spits A Lot, because it quite literally spits a little chemo into me every minute for 46 hours—phone numbers to call if Sir Spits A Lot breaks, and… a small hazmat kit.

Seriously.

Then I was trained in how to clean up chemotherapy if there’s a spill.

If it spills on my clothing:
Use the stoppers on Sir Spits A Lot to block the line.
Put on the special chemo gloves.
Use the enclosed pad (which honestly just looks like a puppy pee pad) to soak up the chemo.
Place the pad and your clothes into the hazmat bag and return them to the cancer center.

“And what about my skin?” I asked. “The skin the chemo just spilled on?”

Wash it off with soap and water.

Cool. 

If the chemo spills on a hardwood or tile surface:
Same steps. Stop the line. Put on the gloves. Use the pad. Hazmat bag.

“And what do I use to clean the floor?” I asked.

Bleach.

And then whatever you used to clean it up with also goes into the hazmat bag and back to the cancer center.

If the chemo spills onto a rug or any soft surface?

Same process.

Then you throw the thing away.

The rug.
The chair.
Whatever it touched.

These do not go back to the cancer center.

I dunno. I stopped asking questions.

It wasn’t until about ten o’clock that night—standing in my bathroom, brushing my teeth, looking at Sir Spits A Lot connected to my port—that it hit me:

This thing is pumping that poison straight into my jugular vein.
There’s no hazmat bag for this.

But, don’t think about that!

Don’t think too hard about that one.

Dissociation, my friends, can be an excellent survival skill.