How the First Week of Chemo Went

It’s been a week since I started chemo now, and I feel like I have gotten off relatively easy this time. Or at least it hasn’t lived up to my worst fears which can make even a hard thing look at least a little better. I’m hoping that future treatments will not be any harder to handle. My major symptoms that I have been dealing with have been fatigue and gastro-intestinal. The fatigue was greatest over the weekend and in the early part of the week. I have been slowly getting more energy back and I was able to drive myself to my appointment yesterday and not feel totally drained when I got home. My gastro-intestinal track has been very touchy since the weekend. Things like mild nausea that reminded me of morning sickness, heartburn, and abdominal cramping have been what I’ve been dealing with.

The weird thing with chemo is how and when side effects show up. I would have thought that they would all come on suddenly, but they do not. The day after chemo I felt almost 100% myself, but by Monday I was really, really tired and dealing with multiple GI issues. Each side effect seems to have its chosen time to make an appearance. What I’m trying to learn right now is if I have to deal with each side effect nonstop or if they will each choose their own times to disappear between treatments. Let’s hope.

The good news is though that the team at the Illinois Cancer Center is awesome. I had a long appointment yesterday with a wonderful Advanced Practice Nurse who went through each of my side effects and helped to find something that would help. I was not expecting the time she willingly took with me and was very impressed. The only bad thing though is that I now feel like I’m back in the pharmacy business again with the amount of drugs that I have on hand and am currently taking. Heartburn med - check, nausea meds – check,  something for mouth sores – check … I mean how much can one girl really take in a day?

The other thing that we discussed yesterday was my blood counts. My doctor likes to hold off on giving medicine to bring up white blood counts until she sees where they are going to fall to. With white blood cells they hit their low point about a week after a chemo treatment. They will then slowly come back up after that until they are at a safe level to repeat the chemo. Yesterday I found out that I need help with getting my white blood cells to more quickly come back up to safe levels. Luckily there is a shot that they can give you that forces your bones to churn out the white blood cells. It was decided that I would get this shot yesterday and then the day after each new chemo treatment. This will help in the future so that hopefully I don’t get this low again. Until it takes effect this time though, I’ve been told to stay home and be very careful. So even though my energy level is starting to come back up and I feel like I could go somewhere for a short time, I cannot.