Starting Chemo September 2015; join us!
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GOod morning everyone. I made it to another day. I got that nuelasta shot yesterday and went to bed thinking hey this isn't so bad. 1:30 am I woke feeling like my arms were tearing through the shoulders. Thank God I asked for a pain med script yesterday when I got the shot. Does anyone know how long bone pain lasts?
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Mind if I join you ladies? I go in on the 21st to get my port in. No official start date yet. My line manager would like me to do short-term disability since I work in a lab handling BSL2 samples. Being immunocompromised while on chemo, I wouldn't be able to process those samples . And he's worried about how I will be feeling and wants me to focus on my health.
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It was a Merle Norman store that I went to. The owner is a cancer survivor so they were particularly helpful. I highly recommend going somewhere that you can try on multiple wigs. The sales lady just kept bringing them out of the back room and would not let me stop until we found the right one. I might go back and get another style but for the start I wanted one close to my normal style
Time to take my first dose of dex. Ugh, I'm already a nervous wreck.
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I've barely eaten and I've gained 7 pounds in 3 days. wth?
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just popping in to give you all encouragement! Consider keeping a journal of how you are feeling each day, meds you took, what tasted good, etc. It helped me a lot to go back in later rounds and remind myself that "this", whatever it was, would pass within a couple of days.
AnnieB - if you count chemo day as Day 1, my Neulasta side effects came on Day 3, Day 4 was probably the worst and Day 5 I was seeing improvement or had the pain drugs figured out. I took Tramadol AND extra strength Tylenol. days 6,7 and 8 were mostly just fatigue, but I crashed pretty bad on Day 8 twice, because I think I tired myself out too much. For the first two treatments, from day 9 until the next treatment, I was pretty much back to my usual self. The fatigue lingered longer after treatment 3 and as of today I am 3 weeks out from final chemo and still pretty wiped out.
Unless your doctors advise otherwise, try to get in some exercise everyday, even if it is just a walk around the block. The more sedentary I have been, the worse the fatigue is.
Good luck everyone, You can do this!!!
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My real hair doesn't look as good as the wig. My husband asked if i could mess up the wig hair to make it look more normal.
It Is going to take a while to get used to it. It's a little itchy but i don't know how it will feel without hair. The sales lady showed me the proper way to put it on so it would be secure. It feels like it is not going any where.
Be sure to use the right hair products for your wigs. Regular products are bad for synthetic hair wigs. So is any heat like from cooking. The hair will melt.
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Skittlegirl, welcome to the group...adding you to the list, let us know when the date is set....we are glad you are here.
I seem to be having no trouble swallowing this am, but will report it to MO this am anyway. I also have a slight headache, but I had that for several days before treatment. I think the headache, and even possibly the swallowing issue, could be an unrelated issue: there is a LOT of smoke in the air from wildfires in the Sierra, and I have a sensitivity that borders on allergy to wood smoke. These fires are scary!
Going to take a short walk anyway before it gets too hot. Makes me feel better about the weight I've gained for no apparent reason (with you on that AnnieB43)
Hope all have a good day.
Octogirl
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Ladies - let your onco know about the weight gain. It was an se listed on my taxotere info sheet and my nurse mentioned that to me as well.
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Thanks AG, good to know! Unfortunately, I can't blame Taxotere for mine: it happened before my first treatment :-( I blame the stress eating. :-(
They are weighing me whenever I go in...
Octogirl
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ok port just placed in on my way home, i am so thirsty!!!!
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I saw my oncologist for the first time yesterday. Waiting until mastectomy is done. I have a question for the group...i was to have mastectomy then reconstruction, using back flap. But found out yesterday that I need chemo and radiation. PS says we can still do tissue expanders and hold off on back flap until after radiation...will be doing AC and Taxol after healing from mastectomy.
does anyone have thoughts on this...
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Hi Southern, I think tonight I will use myhuge recliner to sleep since on the bed is horrible. Hope you feel better beautiful!!!
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Gabby, II had afirst meeting with my Radiation oncologist yesterday while I was in for my chemo and she did say no matter what type of reconstruction I choose it will have to be after my 6 weeks of radiation. The tissue expanders are fine. The radiation is targeted to the areas where the cancer was in the breast and if you have node involvement all 3 areas of lymph nodes to try to kill any stray cells. They program it to hit the area without getting any vital organs so it focused to skim the top of the breast tissue from both sides of the effected breast. I would think that with back flap it would kill the new tissue if you didn't wait. Hth
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gabb56b - my treatment plan is the same as yours. I had a mastectomy with tissue expander. Just finished my first of four rounds of TC last week. Will be followed by radiation and then Diep flap when I amready. My PS said you can have expanders during chemo(they will schedule the fills depending on chemo days to avoid infection). The logic here was my PS doesn't want to irradiate new tissue and skin, thus reconstruction goes last.My breast surgeon and radiologist all agreed with the plan.
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I just finished my chemo - 4x AC in 8 weeks and 12x Taxol in 12 weeks. Had Nuelasta after each of the 4 AC treatments. Lots of aches, but the nurses said to take Claritin the day before, day of and day after. I think it helped, but the AC side effects were enough to keep me distracted!
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thank you....that helps. Good luck on your treatments, I will probably be about 6 weeks behind you. I am meeting with my radiation oncologist next Friday...
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this is the plan for me. I am waiting to have my mastectomy done, then 6 weeks, then onward and upward to get past all of this
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perfect....just needed real opinions
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The bone pain is agony. Tylenol 3 doesn't even touch it. I went against orders and took 600 MG of ibuprofen and can now at least pick up my arm. Swallowing has been hard so I had yogurt and liquids today. I hope tomorrow is better.
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hope everyone else is feeling better. I'm just not wanting to come on here just to complain. I'm worried about our dear friend that gave up and left treatment and the group. That can't end well. I hope she comes back to let us know she's ok.
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annieb43 - sorry to hear about the bone pain. Are you getting the daily shots and may I ask why Ibuprofen was not recommended?
And yes I said a prayer for that person who left too...hope to see her back in the boards...
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AnnieB43--So sorry you're feeling this pain. Please don't look at it as complaining to us. We are all interested in how everyone here is feeling, both good and bad. It's why we're here. While supporting you, those of us who are still waiting on treatment are learning from you and appreciate all of your thoughts. I'm also worried about our friend. Hope you start to feel better and I hope she can find some kind of peace.
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AG3 the doc told me the ibuprofen would upset my stomach and to take tylenol. My stomach is iron so I said to hell with it and took it. It helped a little. I got 1 shot yesterday morning of nulasta and at 130 am I was dying of arm pain. Woke me out of a hard sleep. I took the Claritin yesterday and today and now the Ibuprofen. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I'm having a little swallowing issue but not that bad. My hair hurts like I've had it in a rubber band for days. I drank a gallon a day the day before chemo and day of and I think I should be peeing more. But I'm going to wait it out until tomorrow to call in if I need to before the weekend. I don't have any nausea or anything else other than this deep bone ache. My stomach feels alot better since I think the decadron left me. I wish I could skip that crap the next round.
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I did not get a port. I only have 4 rounds of CT. The nurse put the IV in my hand. The vein there is small so it started to burn up my arm. She increased the saline and put a warm pack on my hand and I had no troubles after that. My hand feels ok today. Just FYI in case someone was questioning a port.
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Annieb43- ok good to know and great no other SE's but yep the bone pain was unpleasant . I am 10 days post chemo. had my last shot two days ago , and no more bone pain, so hang in there!
Don't mean to pry but have you been peeing a lot? That really helps flush out the meds...
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I've been having a lot of trips to the bathroom but with all I've had to drink it feels like I should pee more at a time, but I'm still going so I'm not worried yet.
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ok great! Try to take walks, even five minutes. You'll feel better. I live in a condo and found myself taking trash out more, just to get moving.
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I've gone up and down the stairs to the bathroom a lot. I just got down half a chicken sandwich so it's getting better. Really I don't know what I'd do without this place to come and ask questions and complain because no one around me here can really just get it at all.
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I slept in the recliner the first two nights after port surgery. It hurt to lay on either side in bed. By the third night it was okay in bed.
I would guess that the people getting ports are the ones who are looking at a year of treatment.
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