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Wow. I have never heard this about Hydrea and I have been under an Oncologist and Cancer Center Care for over 7 years. HOwever, when I was in the hospital for some testing about 4 years ago, the nurses asked me to bring the Hydrea from home. I had my husband bring it up to the nurses who turned around and brought the capped bottle to me in a zip lock They told me I had to take it out the bag myself and they would "observe me taking it and document such because they were not licensed to administer chemotherapy and some of their nurses were preganant and they could not touch the stuff. I couldn't help but chuckle and said to the nurse: "you mean you can't even touch the stuff but I am putting it in my body twice a day, every day?" So, so far my husband has not suffered any side effects that I know of. He doesn't touch the medicine but is around me all the time and in the bathroom. I will have to look into this thing about the flushing.
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Hi @esperanzam, Chemo nurses are RNs who have special certification in administering chemotherapy. Some hospitals require that only these nurses can give patients their chemo medications.
Anytime I had chemo, the nurses were in fluid resistant gowns, masked with a face shield and gloves. I also had one medication that was a chemotherapy drug from a specialty pharmacy. It did have to accompany me to the hospital when I was admitted under an emergency situation. Their pharmacy had to verify the medication and then I had to handle and take the pill myself because it was not a hospital provided drug. There’s a lot of protocol in hospitals to prevent error and laws suits. 🙂
Just use caution around the meds. From my experience with my chemo nurses it’s the long term exposure for them if they’re in childbearing years that was the main concern for all the hazmat suits. It’s OSHA protocol for the health and safety of medical staff.
Some of these meds are very strong but if they buy us quality of life and extended time with our families, it’s worth taking. ☺️ I’ve extended my life 4 years so far!