The Battle of Chemotherapy

The next stop in my War on Uterine Cancer was chemotherapy. I didn't know what to expect and that is a little scary. I remember being on the phone the night before with a friend having a bit of anxiety and being a bit hyper from the steroids I had to take.

My first 4 hour date with chemo.

I didn't sleep at all that night and the next day was dragging ass. It turned out to not be awful. I was in a room sitting in a comfy chair with other chemo patients. The nurse gave me a warmed blanket and pillows. I brought my lap top with because 4 hours is a long time with nothing to do.

The chemo meds in my drip were Carboplatin, Taxotere and an anti-nausea that I don't recall the name of right now. Then 24 hours after I was done with chemo I had to give myself a shot of Neulasta. That was the part I was concerned about, giving myself a shot. The first time I had my neighbor help me because she was used to giving herself shots of insulin. The Neulasta can cause bone pain so I had to take Claritin starting the day of chemo and for 4-5 days after.

I had to do 6 rounds of chemo, one every three weeks. The side effects were not easy to deal with but by far not as bad as I expected or had heard about from others. I did lose my hair but I will discuss that in my next post.

The biggest side effect for me was the tiredness. It was like this bone weariness that no matter how much sleep I got, wasn't able to get away from for about a week.

The first 2 days after a round of chemo I was ok because I was also given oral steroids to take and wow those gave me some energy. I took 4 pills the day before chemo and 4 the day after. I was also given anti-nausea meds ondansetron 8mg and prochlorperazine 10mg. Those pills were amazing at keeping me from vomiting. I was still feeling queezy here and there and the doc gave me another anti-nausea to take that was fast acting if it came on suddenly.

After the first 2 days, then I noticed things starting to happen. My body felt like it was walking through mud and then after about 5 day it got easier and was like walking through water. By day 7 I was only walking through sand. I was still tired but not as to the bone tired.

As a single mother of 3, I still had things to get done. It was time to get kids back in school for the year and there was no one to help with that as I have no close family. So I just sucked it up, no matter how bad I felt and went and bought new shoes, clothes, school supplies etc.. I also was having diarrhea so before I went anywhere I made sure I was taking some Imodium AD just to make it through the trip and always brought water or a sports drink with me.

So this isn't the end of my chemotherapy info but I will discuss losing my hair and other side effects in the next post.