Stopping Chemo

The needle you mentioned to boost the white blood cells, I had that after every chemo also, and it gave me horrendous bone pain - honestly it felt like every bone in my body was broken. I was taking 2x Endone and 2x Panadol every 4 hours just to be able to get out of bed. The pain would start on usually day 2 after the injection and last til about day 5 or so. Thankfully I was given a heads up about the bone pain, not everyone gets it, but I was unfortunate enough to get it every time. 

I didn't get as bad side effects as your mum, but I did have some ie. very unpredictable bowel - I felt trapped in the house sometimes...I  was given a 24hr number to get a hold of my oncologist, she was amazing and told me to call her at ANY time if there was anything that I was worried about. I called her a few times throughout my treatment (I had the last of 8 doses of chemo on 18th March)  and usually the way to fix almost all side effects is to either tweak the "cocktail" of chemo, or to prescribe some other medication to take home ie. painkillers, anti nausea, laxative / anti-constipation drugs.  As an example, I was told that if the tingling / numbness in my feet got any worse, we could do a slightly lower dose of chemo, and have it over 9 doses instead of 8. Maybe a tweaking of the drugs is all that your mum needs. I felt that I was living on tablets, but once we got the routine down and figured out what I needed, it was quite doable and nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

I agree with Robyn, your mum's infection was probably the cause of a lot of her troubles, not the chemo. The short temper & being irrational could be brought on out of frustration at feeling so lousy!

Of course it is the patient's right to accept, refuse or stop any treatment at any time, however I would at least discuss it at length with the oncologist and try anything they suggest (as in a change of drugs to have at home) before requesting to stop treatment. Keep in mind that a lot of ladies have been through the chemo before so the oncologist would have seen the side effects and know how to deal with it.

Best of luck with it, hopefully they can sort it out for your mum. xox