Starting chemo February 2018
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22fightor, so sad to read about UTI. Wish u don't have to stay at the hospital and that your MRI will be good.
Mom of two, I am day 2 after second round AC and I have stomach pain as if I ate a too heavy meal. Yesterday I tried the anti-nausea medication I was prescribed which is called prochlorperazine but it didn't work because I didn't feel nauseated. This morning I took tylenol but it didn't help. It is now 3pm and I start to feel nauseated so I will try the anti nausea med. I haven't eaten lunch yet. I am also losing my hair and it does not bother me. I didn't cut it. Now my line in my hair is quite thick.
Good luck to all!
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22fightfor-thinking of you and hoping you're out of hospital soon! Sending you hugs!
Ladies-I would say, the hair loss process is much more of a big deal than buzzing it and getting used to your bald head. Didn't bother me much. But dealing with the dragging days of collecting hair all over the place did. So just buzz it and start from scrarch with beautiful hair! 😉
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22- oh no, I'm so sorry ur in the hospital!! Hope you get out quick and feel better, I gotta remember to drink water and less coffee on my good days..thanks for reminding me! And the hair loss, woof, that 1st shed was rough, had to even cut a large rat nest out of my hair, but it has slowed down so much now and I can cover up the thinned spots well with toppik or a hat. Hopefully urs slowed!
Momof2-For nausea- I got aloxi in chemo( last 3 days), then emend for 3 days. Then a proactively take Ativan and compazine. I am very prone to nausea in my regular life, pregnancies, and this works really well. I still feel queezy for a couple days but it's tolerable and not like I'm gonna throw up. Hope you feel better!
Does anyone take cbd? I just got my medical card and looking into it for symptom management .
And just to add to port talk.. I'm getting tcx4 and have had 2 treatments with no port. My oncologist felt there was no reason to have one for me since I have good veins and only 4 treatments.
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22, I'm sending healing thoughts your way. Hoping you can go home.
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Thanks for all the healing thoughts and prayers, they worked! The MRI was fine, and I was sent home after the IV antibiotic. I have a 10 day script for oral abx,and now I’m just hoping this won’t interfere with my 2nd infusion which is scheduled for Thursday!
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good news 22fighter
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Does anyone have night sweats? I’ve had them prior to diagnosis and don’t know what to think. I am perimenopausal. I don’t experience hot or cold flashes jus the night sweats almost every night when I wake up in the morning.
Tracy
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That's great news 22fighter!
I followed moth's recommendation of upping my water intake and feel a little better. Even went for a nice family walk!
Jlove.. I was considering CBD too...even for its medicinal benefits. I'd like to hear how it works out for you. I read somewhere online about avoiding thc though as it's possibly estrogenic?
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22fightfor wonderful that you where not hospitalized. Good information on who can access these ports. In the hospital I was in the only nurses trained to access my port where the nurses on the oncology floor. I think each hospital is more than likely different and we have to be proactive and find out who can access them where we are at. Of course that is if the darn thing is working like it is meant to.
Seems like a lot of us are getting laid low with severe SE with the second infusion. The nausea is so horrid for me as well I got to skip chemo Friday letting my white count build up more, (would have been round 3) and Thursday was the first day I did not have nausea, so that would have been almost a full two weeks it kept popping up. It was slowly getting better but Thursday was the first day it was completely gone. I am so not looking forward to going back to feeling sick all the time. I still have no idea what the new plan if any is but I am hoping they back off the dense dose and then have the last two three weeks apart. More than likely won't happen but I can wish.
Those who don't have ports I need one because I have tiny veins in my arms that infiltrate easily and are badly scarred from previous health issues. Heck with the port issues seems that is just my veins no matter where they are. AC causes horrific permanent damage if it infiltrates into surrounding tissues.
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22fightfor- so sorry to hear that you're in the emergency room with a UTI. Wishing you a speedy recovery and hopefully you won't need to be admitted into the hospital.
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For those that have shaved their heads, do you then have to deal with stubble re-growth and loss? Does the hair loss happen only once?
Feeling way better today...hope everyone else has also kicked their se's to the curb too!!
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Greetings my fellow February warrior sisters😊!
I've been quiet on here as round 3 of red devil kicked my butt worst than round 2!. I had chemo last tuesday and by that night went into the emergency room and was admitted until Friday evening. I had a fever of 102 and my wbc was 30 thousand triple the normal range. The bone pain even with clartin, advil and tramadol still was intolerable. I ended up with a kidney infection as well. I was so miserable. But they hydrated me well that i was able to hold food down.
I want to say thank you for all of you being here, my friend and family try to understand but unless, you've been through it, going through it its hard for them to relate.
I hope all of ypu have a great week! Trying to catch up on this thread that way i dont feel so alone!).
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Final AC round today. Took anxiety meds for the saline flushes wound up feeling too "off" to drive and had to leave my car there and have hubs drive me home. Our nephew is driving him back now to get it.
They dropped my steroid dose in half because of the racing heart and sweats.
My anti-nausea protocol is this: During infusions I get Aloxi, dextramethasone, and emend. Then I take zofran pills for a few days as preventative. They've also given me ativan and phenergan as extras in case I get sick but I've only gotten really sick once.
Doctor and I briefly discussed Taxol which is up next. She has patients do cold mitts to try to prevent neuropathy. She said there isn't a lot of hard data to support it but it won't hurt to try so she thinks it's worth a go. She said I don't have to do something like neulasta each time but that Taxol itself causes bone pain and that the same protocol for neulasta-clartin etc doesn't work on that. Only twelve weeks though, right? ugh
I think the treatment center vs hospital must be a regional thing too. I'm going to a local cancer treatment center and the treatment room is just for onco patients and all of the nurses there are specialist onco nurses. So they all know how to do the lines and port access both. I've not had any issues with them. They've always accommodated any requests I've had-like leaving off the bandaids/ shitty sticky tape if I'm not bleeding. I ask them if I can just hold the gauze for a bit instead of tape and they let me without fuss. I hate that tape too Lollotte. And I refuse it whenever possible.
22fightfor-I am so sorry about the UTI. I had to have a procedure done as a child because I got them so bad. I still get them more than most people as an adult and that has been in the back of my mind. Hopefully you're over and done quick.
jlove-I have not taken cbd but I've wondered if it would make me feel any better. Not just nausea but better overall. I have to laugh here because of all the offers of help I've gotten everyone is either bringing me blankets or asking if I want them to get me some form of cannabis. A sad side effect of it becoming legal in some places is that it's only being bred for high tch content which means the oil is lower which is what has the good stuff medicinally. Oh well, I'm not at the point where I want to take any just yet but I am curious how it goes for you.
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Sharon - thinking of you!! Sorry you're going through this right now. My heart and prayers are with you for a speedy recovery!! You are not alone! ❤❤❤
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MO says I have to have the port - I’m giving up
On a bad note, weather says blizzard so I cant drive in 90 minutes for treatment. Definitely not gonna be my week.
Tracy
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Hi all,
Round 3 done Friday, and now onto the SE lying around bit. This one is a bit harder than the last 2, with bone pain, but the drugs for the side effects help make it bearable.
22fighter: sorry about the troubles, thinking about you
MOMOFTWO: I have to keep shaving off stubble but I'm getting pretty good at it.
SHARONK... We're here for you even if we don't hear from you.
CBOK: Congrats for finishing up with AC and good luck with Taxol. I've been on TC and I've been doing ice on hands and feet. In fact the cancer centre where I am at just came out with the bags of ice when they switch the meds to the taxol so seems like they think it works. All I know is that I have not had any neuropathy or nail problems at all.
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Sharon, i hope you're feeling better now. Sucks to have so many SEs.
I am day 4 after round 2 AC and I envy CBOK who is in her last round. I feel like crap and want to stop everything. I feel weird and I have blind spots in my vision as if I watched the sun too much. It is an awful sensation and it prevents me to read, work on my class or just live. None of you has this SE and I don't understand why I have it. I hate this!
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Thanks Girls,
Lolette19- do you wear contacts or glasses? I wear glasses and sometimes get blurred vision since starting chemo
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Hi girls, this is my first round where bone pain is pretty bad. I've got drugs, Naproxen and codeine but would like to use alternative to drugs if possible. Anyone find if stretching helps? Booked a massage this afternoon. Any tips would be appreciated. Strange that round 1 and 2, no issue then round 3 kablamo!
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Hi friends -
lolotte - bummer about the vision problems. Does your doctor have any ideas? Maybe it's a migraine aura? Day 4 has been my worst day on both rounds - so tired and limp and feeling really bad after the steroids wear off. I hope you can just rest in bed or on the couch and wait for this day to end & feel better tomorrow.
indahood - when I had bone pain from the grastofil in round 1, I got a lot of muscle pain around it so I think the massage is a good idea. I really wanted to get a massage but then my neutrophils crashed and I worried about infection. Having someone that close for an hour breathing on me, even if we both masked (which I hear is useless after about 10 min because the vapour from your breath makes the mask a bit wet & then bacteria and viruses can get through) seemed too dangerous. But I think the bone pain can lead to muscle pain and if you can relieve some of that, it will be better. Hot baths with epsom salts would help muscle pain too. Also you could ask your MO about using Voltaren gel. It's a topical NSAID (like your naproxen) but because you apply it just to the affected area, you use a much smaller dose. Voltaren is OTC in Canada and there's also a stronger version available by prescription. Not sure it works on grastofil bone pain but it does for arthritis type bone pain....
I saw an MO today & assuming my blood counts tomorrow are good I'm resuming full dose chemo on Thurs. Yay! I will be happy if we can do that as the reduced dosage is obviously not optimal for cancer fighting & I'd like to hit this as hard as we can.0 -
Lolotte- I don't have spots but I'm having blurred vision that's gotten worse with each round. My doc said it should be temporary and should go back to normal eventually. It is quite weird.
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lolette- I, too, have blurred vision with my TCHP. Im mostly impacted with reading. My Mo told me it was a common side-effect and it too shall pass. It can be very frustrating. I wear glasses for driving but never required glasses for reading. I'm still thankful that so far none of the SES have impacted my ability to work. But every few days or so there is something new. Good luck. You are not alone.
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I had my second round of chemo on Tuesday, March 13th. I went through the Chemo # 1 infusion with no problems, but this time I had a complication. I started turning red and had trouble breathing. Thank God my husband was sitting with me at the time so he could alert the nurses. Three nurses came running with syringes. They injected my IV with Benadryl and a dose of a steroid, and it worked like a charm. My chemo nurse said that if there are going to be side effects from a chemo drug, it will happen during either the first or second chemo. My poor husband had the most upset look on his face. Bless his heart for being a trooper through all of this, as I know it's hard on him.
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momlovesherkitties-what a scary experience for both you and your husband. Glad everything went okay.
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Hi all, glad some of you mentioned blurry vision, I've had it to and never thought to think it's the chemo, yikes so many side effects. So I had some neuropathy in my toes this time, since I stand for a living this kinda scares me hoping it's temporary. Mom loves, that was a scary experience hope you're calmed down a bit from it. Had my port put in today and for some reason I was totally freaked out about the procedure, one they have me the anxiety drugs I calmed down and got thru it and it seems OK. The 3 hour wait didn't do my anxiety much either, just glad it's over. All the nurses derm to call out when they see what chemo had done to my arms at the iv site, have I showed you all that? The burn shows up a few days after my chemo and hurts and peels like a burn
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Deb- those burns look horrible. Hopefully the port will prevent any of that from happening again. I've been using a port this whole time. It seems to work well for the infusions. The port itself is not the most comfortable though. I think it presses on a nerve. Have you tried icing during taxotere for neuropathy? It's not fun, but it's tolerable. My MO also has me on vitamin B6 for neuropathy and also recommends alpha lipoic acid if needed. You may want to speak to your doctor about neuropathy. That is a SE they definitely want to keep an eye on.
Btw, how is your stomach? I hope you are finished with the D!
Me, I just had round 3 yesterday and Neulesta today. I figure the SE will kick in tomorrow.
Warm thoughts for everyone in chemo this week. Spring is around the corner. Can’t wait. Of course in Michigan, I’m going to wait and wait and wait.......
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Had some D last chemo, next one is tomorrow, hope this port doesn't burn like my arms did. Hope everyone else is doing OK, hard for me to keep up here when I'm working. I take off a full week after chemo since I stand all day at my job plus no one wants me cutting /coloring their hair when I feel like that lol so I will be able to catch up here then. Prayers for all of you
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i swear Deb I am going to stop complaining about my SEs. Yours are way worse! I hope your port works well. I will think about you tomorrow.
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Did my blood work today & my neutrophils & total WBC count are finally totally normal! Yay! Thanks, Neulasta!
Alas, my platelets are too low
I'm supposed to have round 3 tomorrow afternoon; they're going to repeat blood work 90 min before the scheduled infusion to see if we can go ahead or we need to postpone for a week. I hate that we have to drive there & wait around maybe for nothing but oh well.
On the plus side, I feel really well! The sun is shining today & things are growing in my garden.
Deb - those chemical burns look bad! Poor you. I hope the port makes everything smoother for you.
molovesherkitties - wow, that must have been scary for your dh. Good thing your nurses were obviously well trained & knew just what t do & do it quickly!
Rockcity - I hope all the SEs just skip you this time. I mean we can hope, right?
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deb-Wow! I can't believe those burns on your arms. My SEs have been minimal. I feel so sorry for you and everything that you have been through. Some of you have been through hell with the side effects from chemo. I'm thankful I had a port in from the beginning. They put my port in when they did my double mastectomy. Those of you who are having a tough time tough time with side effects I hope they diminish soon.
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