Newly diagnosed and learning

Sorry to hear yet another fallen prey to breast cancer but welcome. We're not a bad bunch to be associated with. Because your lump is 8cm I imagine is why they want to do chemo first rather than surgery and then chemo. Its to shrink it all down and chase down all the feelers and hopefully stop it all dead in its tracks before they go doing surgery. The type of cancer, your age and circumstance all play a part in what sort of chemo you will have. Some have rather challenging side effects especially to self image and losing hair and nails but some effect little more than flu symptoms. One pretty common theme is it makes you dog tired, not so much in needing to sleep but weary in the whole body. Its taking me about a year to recover from chemo. I just had blood tests which say everything's A ok after 10 months but I still need another couple of months where my energy levels not only come but "stay" a while. It does get frustrating and I feel I have aged about 20yrs in one year.