1 week

Tess, you've said the very thing I've been thinking of, as I maybe have to face chemo.  It means being made much sicker and more helpless that one's ever been, as the price for becoming healthy.  Only a couple of months ago, I had open-heart surgery to have a failing congenitally ill-formed heart valve replaced.   After reading your later post about your first week's experience of chemo, everything connected with the open-heart surgery was a piece of cake by comparison.  Sure there were discomforts (but not really pain) in the first week after the operation, but I could happily wander around the wards.  Best thing was that every single day, I could feel the gradual return to health.  Two months on, I got a great report.... and was signed off... by both the cardiologist and the surgeon.  Then a lump was found in my left breast... and I've found myself in the world of breast cancer. It amazes me how different everyone's experiences of chemotherapy have been.  Some seem to go through, having side effects, but they're manageable.  Others seem to be wiped out as if they've been machine gunned.  My question is how do people keep finding a way through it, when for some of them, they're not even able to wallk.... like you go wiped for days.   Does it get better as the person's body adjusts to the particular chemo?