Chemotherapy – looking back after 6 months

I’ve intended to write about chemotherapy for a long time.   This seems an appropriate time – just a year ago, in mid-November 2010, I was recovering from a lumpectomy and considering my treatment options – what type of radiation, what type of chemo?  Six months ago, mid-May 2011, I was recovering from the last chemo treatment and preparing for radiation.  Today, those treatments are behind me, although I continue with a targeted treatment (herceptin) that has less debilitating side-effects than chemo.   If I had written this earlier, the anger and anguish I felt would have permeated it.  Now my feelings are subdued – less intensely angry, I feel relief to be done with chemo, but I feel a certain level of fear that, having been poisoned, I may never again be the same.

In the eyes of my oncologist, I did well with chemotherapy.  Objectively, I suppose that is true.  I know that others had a much worse experience than I. I never had an infection, although my white blood cell count dropped; I was not hospitalized; I experienced little nausea and no outright vomiting, thanks to strong preventive medications; I continued to work except for my doctor appointments and treatment days.   Nevertheless, having chemotherapy is being infused with poison (cytotoxin) that kills cells throughout the body, and I felt it acutely.   I felt angry that a 2 centimeter clump of rogue cells necessitated an all-out chemical attack on every actively growing cell in my body.  Physically I was weakened and racked with pain; emotionally I was terrified, saddened and angry.

Chemotherapy should be called cytotoxic cancer treatment – that would be accurate.  The systemic effect of the drugs (for me, carboplatin and taxotere) was overwhelming, although taken one at a time, the effects could be manageable.  Here is a list of effects I had during the 6 cycles of treatment:

• Loss of hair, all over my body
• Shedding of skin cells, to the extent that the interior of my clothes were coated with white specks at the end of each day
• Having the skin on my hands redden, burn and peel
• Having constipation for a few days, followed by days of cramps and diarrhea
• Experiencing pain and constriction in my throat while swallowing
• Having a constant bad taste in my mouth and finding many foods completely unappetizing
• Being able to eat only small amounts at a time
• Feeling the fieriest heartburn ever
• Having a dripping nose and watering eyes, sometimes with blurred vision
• Having regular nose bleeds, though thankfully not prolonged
• Experiencing excruciating bone pain in my lower legs and spine
• Becoming anemic and having no energy
• Having my legs feel like dead weights when I tried to walk up stairs
• For various reasons, having difficulty sleeping
• Dying toenails and fingernails – turning black or white and partially separating from the toe or finger
• Neuropathy – tingling and semi-numbness in fingers, toes and up to my sock line on my calves

I do feel frustrated that the treatment is so difficult to undergo, and I know others for whom it was worse.  Why not just say “No”? It’s tempting to think that once the tumor has been cut out, the problem is fixed. Well, my choice was based on current medical knowledge and statistics.  I was unlucky enough to have a “nasty” tumor – one having mutations that made it an aggressively growing SOB.   Chances were good that it had sent out little cells (with the same growth factors) that could start growing in the future.  The treatments I took and am still taking have been shown to greatly reduce the chance of recurrence.  In short, I chose the poison so that I would have the best possible chance at a long disease-free life.

Most of the side effects are over now.  I can walk up stairs with ease, and enjoy biking. I have hair and new fingernails.

However, my toenails are slow to recover and I still experience neuropathy in my toes.     I hope that the fatigue will abate with time and the conclusion of the herceptin treatment.

Mentally and spiritually, I feel benefits from the ordeal – a certain re-ordering of the priorities of life, a loosening of attachment to things that aren’t so important.   And yet, in my haste to put the experience behind me, I find it easy to fall back into old habits, to want the comfort of having things just so.  It has been a life-changing experience, but not in a great epiphany way.  I am still sorting it out, still regaining my physical strength and reflecting on my goals and hopes for the future.

 

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