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Monica_S's avatar
Monica_S
Member
13 years ago

Chemotherapy

I've finally had my operation 5 weeks ago and I'm slowly getting their. All went well, cancer gone with clear margins no sign of it in my lymph nodes. I found out I am both ostrogen and progesterone receptive and am HER2 positive. So now I have to have chemotherapy which I always said I wouldn't. My mum had breast cancer and I remember what she went through with chemotherapy and I vowed I would never take it, but I see I have no choice if I wanna be around for along time. I lost my mum to the battle of cancer as she ended up getting secondaries and wasn't diagnosed early with her initial breast cancer as she was too scared to go to the doctors. I don't want that happening to me. I'm a bit scared over the whole next step but I can do it I tell myself. I will have 4 doses of T&C chemotherapy, 18 doses of herceptin and tamoxifen for 5 years. Does anyone have any advice on what I could expect or need for my next chapter with dealing with chemotherapy. I would love to hear about your experiences with it all.
chemotherapy
her2
hormone-therapy
tamoxifen

1 Reply

  • Janet_Plummer's avatar
    Janet_Plummer
    Member
    13 years ago
    Hi Monica, So sorry to hear about your diagnosis but clear margins and no node involvement is good news. I had 4 doses of CT chemo last year. Let me start by saying it wasn't as bad as I expected. I thought I would be bed-ridden and throwing up for months. It wasn't quite that bad but it wasn't much fun either. I found that I felt worst on days 3-5 after each treatment - very, very tired, horrible taste in my mouth, achey muscles, slight temp. I did spend some of those bad days in bed, reading, dozing, surfing the net on my laptop. After about the 5th day you start to feel a little better and  you can carry on with life pretty much as normal, although the tiredness and lethargy never completely goes until chemo finishes. And after each successive treatment it's a little bit worse.One of the worst things for me was losing my hair which unfortunately you can't avoid. I bought myself a nice wig for going out and a few hats to wear around the house. There's no getting around it - baldness sucks. But obviously dying would suck a lot more. My hair is growing back slowly but nine months later I'm still wearing my wig cause I hate my hair really short. Just gotta be patient I suppose.The other thing to be aware of is that your immune system is suppressed by the chemo - it kills the white blood cells. So you have to be really careful about germs and infection. If you pick up a bug it can be very serious on chemo and you can end up in hospital. I was lucky to avoid that. I used a lot of anti-bacterial sprays, hand sanitiser etc. plus I had to give myself an injection in the stomach after each treatment to boost white blood cell production - a bit confronting.There is a post on this site which I think is called "What helped you on your journey" with lots of helpful hints on getting you through chemo.  I gues what you need to keep in mind is that everyone's body reacts a little differently. There is a frightenly long list of sides effects that you might develop. You probably won't develop them all but I think you need to as prepared and aware as you can be for what could happen. Good luck Monica. There is a lot to take in at the moment. It can be a bit overwhelming trying to get your head around it all. Hope it goes as smoothly as possible for you. Janet :)