A/C chemo

Who would have ever thought that the lovely red drug and it's partner could be so nasty.

I have just completed my second lot of A/C chemotherapy on Monday. It has been a week since that happened and it feels great to feel half normal.

Here is how I felt after having the chemothrapy.....

Lethargy/Fatigue: 

For the first couple of days all I wanted to do was sleep. I made sure that I listened to what my body wanted. It was very hard for me to keep my eyes open. CLosing them made it feel so much better.  I struggled very hard to keep a conversation with people. The concentration of trying to remember what they were saying and trying to answer them was vry difficult.  The thing that did help me was listening to some relaxing music, sitting outside in the warm sun, not having the t.v on and when I did want to sleep I would close the blinds.  By day 3 (Wednesday) I managed to drive to Kmart to get a couple of things, and then go home to sleep. Doing 1 thing for me while I had the energy was good mentally for me because it allowed me to get out of the house, and be a part of every day life.  Thursday, I found the energy to drive to a park around the corner and sit in the nice warm car for an hour. 

Nausea/Vomiting: 

The nausea and the vomiting is not a good thing for me.  This unfortunatelly for me lasted a whole week. The drugs that they gave me were good and they did reduce how I felt, but I still achieved to vomit once a day and constantly feel nausea.  The smell of food intensified and I had to sit outside while my mother-in-law and husband cooked dinner each night.  It is so like having morning sickness. I would crave roast potatoes with salt for lunch and then totally be turned off them by dinner or the next day. My advise would be just to listen to what your body wants and go with the flow. Eat what you want to eat when you want to eat.  I also found that the nausea for me produced a lot of saliva.  It was easier to spit it out in a tissue than swallow it, because the air in the bubbles created heartburn for me and made me feel more sick and as a result I kept of burping a lot. 

Concentration:

For the first week I found it really hard to concentrate. I couldn't hold a conversation with people, and had to let them know that only one word answers were the way to go. Feel free to let people know that they have to stop talking, because for me when they kept on going my head felt like there was a tornado inside and all the words were getting mooshed up.  The day that I did go to Kmart I went inside there and totally forgot why I was there.

I hope that this has helped those of you that will be going through the chemotherapy that I am going through. If I can think of anything else I will add to the blog. Love Donna