Chemotherapy - Week 1
Now that I am sufficiently healed from my surgery, I get to start my 6 months of Chemotherapy. Apparently there are lots of chemo medicines...a little fact that I didn't know. I will be using Taxol and Carboplatin with the following schedule: Week 1 - Taxol and Carbo combined; Weeks 2 & 3 - Taxol only; Week 4 - Off!
I do expect to lose my hair somewhere between day 14-17. A sweet friend who just finished chemotherapy for breast cancer threw me a hat/scarf party to help prepare for that. It was such a great time to talk with friends and learn ways to cover my soon-to-be bald head! I'm surprisingly ok with losing my hair. Of course, I haven't seen my bald head yet, so I imagine that might change. The good news is that I'll be nice and cool this summer and, for the first time, I will get to experiment with hair styles of all lengths this fall!
I just finished my first infusion on Thursday, March 23. I was more nervous for chemo than I was for my surgery. There are so many potential side effects, but everyone is so different that you have no idea what to expect until you actually go through it.
I got all hooked up and finished all of my pre-meds - they give rounds of benadryl, steroids, pepcid, and anti-nausea medicine before they give any chemo. I took this picture as soon as they started my first round of Taxol. I was a bit overly optimistic.
I took this picture right after the Taxol started flowing to send to my mom. I wanted to show her that all was going well. I even started to send a text stating how well everything was going. Not 30 seconds later, mid text, I started to have an allergic reaction and struggled to breathe. My chest and face felt like they were constricting and my head felt like it was about to blow. I managed to whisper "I can't breathe," to Roger, who proceeded to stare at me to make sure I really couldn't breathe. He later said that my face was purple and my veins looked like they were about to jump from my forehead.
Luckily, a nurse caught my panicked expression and jumped in. While I tried to remember how to breathe, several nurses came with oxygen and meds. They gave me a quadruple dose of steroids and a triple dose of benadryl and I was able to breathe normally again after about 30 minutes. We resumed the treatment, but at a much slower pace. That was nasty. But now we know what we need to do to avoid it from happening again.
Because of all of the steroids, I didn't sleep much that night. I hear I can expect that each time I have an infusion. I did, however, sleep for most of the next 3 days. I'd get up and walk around for 20-30 minutes, then sleep for 2-3 hours. I did feel nauseous at times, but my anti-nausea meds worked well for me and I never really got sick. Just super tired.
Today is day 5 and I feel really good. I'm a bit weak and shaky, but I haven't needed any anti-nausea meds today. I do have some mouth sores, but they are manageable right now. I'm hoping this means that I'll feel good the rest of the week. I've been told that the first week is the hardest. If so, then this bodes well for me. If the worst is sleeping for 3 days, then I can totally manage this! Every mom's dream is to sleep for 3 days and I might get to do it every week for 6 months!
I do expect to lose my hair somewhere between day 14-17. A sweet friend who just finished chemotherapy for breast cancer threw me a hat/scarf party to help prepare for that. It was such a great time to talk with friends and learn ways to cover my soon-to-be bald head! I'm surprisingly ok with losing my hair. Of course, I haven't seen my bald head yet, so I imagine that might change. The good news is that I'll be nice and cool this summer and, for the first time, I will get to experiment with hair styles of all lengths this fall!
I just finished my first infusion on Thursday, March 23. I was more nervous for chemo than I was for my surgery. There are so many potential side effects, but everyone is so different that you have no idea what to expect until you actually go through it.
I got all hooked up and finished all of my pre-meds - they give rounds of benadryl, steroids, pepcid, and anti-nausea medicine before they give any chemo. I took this picture as soon as they started my first round of Taxol. I was a bit overly optimistic.
Luckily, a nurse caught my panicked expression and jumped in. While I tried to remember how to breathe, several nurses came with oxygen and meds. They gave me a quadruple dose of steroids and a triple dose of benadryl and I was able to breathe normally again after about 30 minutes. We resumed the treatment, but at a much slower pace. That was nasty. But now we know what we need to do to avoid it from happening again.
Because of all of the steroids, I didn't sleep much that night. I hear I can expect that each time I have an infusion. I did, however, sleep for most of the next 3 days. I'd get up and walk around for 20-30 minutes, then sleep for 2-3 hours. I did feel nauseous at times, but my anti-nausea meds worked well for me and I never really got sick. Just super tired.
Today is day 5 and I feel really good. I'm a bit weak and shaky, but I haven't needed any anti-nausea meds today. I do have some mouth sores, but they are manageable right now. I'm hoping this means that I'll feel good the rest of the week. I've been told that the first week is the hardest. If so, then this bodes well for me. If the worst is sleeping for 3 days, then I can totally manage this! Every mom's dream is to sleep for 3 days and I might get to do it every week for 6 months!
Comments