My last post came shortly before my last chemo treatment, and then I took a break – a long break – from thinking about anything to do with the past year. I had a great time; I went shopping, I decorated the house for Christmas, had a visit with my mom, did some baking, then did some more baking and added some baking on top of that. I had some birthday celebrations, then celebrated Christmas with Family, then went to Las Vegas and celebrated some more, and ended it off with a great celebration with friends for New Year’s. In case you missed the Facebook posts, I rang the bell at the end of treatment! You can see a pic at the end of the post.
Now I’m back at work, actually working in the office, and it’s back to reality. A different reality, to be sure, but it’s reality. New year, new focus, new feelings, new beginnings.
My heart (and support!) goes out to anyone going through chemotherapy, but especially to one friend in particular who will be starting his journey at the end of this week. I have so much respect for anyone that has to go through that – I had it easier than most people, however it still affected me in a big way. I am so thankful that I am done. It’s over! I am tempted to say that it is my biggest achievement in life. It was definitely the biggest challenge in my life. Overall I think I did well. I fought hard, I kept a positive attitude, I kept a semi-normal social life, and even managed to work while going through treatment. Obviously none of it would have been possible without my wonderful husband, my family, and of course my friends. Being able to laugh and make fun of some situations certainly helped my mood! Cancer is a serious disease, but humor makes the process less frightening. I thought I would share some of my side effects and what I did to combat them if applicable. I know that it's different for everyone but maybe this will help someone!
1. I lost my hair. All of it. Head, eyebrows, eyelashes, legs, arms etc. This was listed as a "common" side effect of the chemo cocktail that I was on, so I knew it would happen. Not really much I could do to fix it. I got a wig, I got a stencil to help my do my eyebrows, I went to Sephora and found someone to teach me how to use the stencil to do my eyebrows, and I learned how to apply false eyelashes. If you want to read more about how I actually felt about losing my hair, go back and read my post called "Bald Head Buddies".
2. My appetite changed but I was able to still eat. I didn't always eat super healthy foods, I ate whatever made me feel okay or sometimes whatever I could taste. Everything had a metallic taste to it which made food less enjoyable overall. Lemonade (the real stuff, not powdered) and salt and vinegar chips were the only things that tasted normal! However I did gain weight - not sure if it was from my crappy diet or from the steroids during treatment or both, but it doesn't matter. It happened, and probably better to gain than to lose.
3. I was nauseous for a few days after treatment, but not sick. The medication that I got seemed to control the worst of it, towards the end of my treatments it was worse but still manageable. Nothing but medication helped.
4. Probably the worst side effect for me was the terrible body aches (myalgia). Think of the body aches you get when you have a bad flu, then multiply that by fifty. Advil and my heating pad were my best friends during this!
5. I was so exhausted. So. Exhausted. Walking up one flight of stairs would require a five minute rest. Even showering would drain my energy. The only thing that seemed to help - strangely enough - was continuing to move. Going for walks on a regular basis actually seemed to help with most of my symptoms.
So like I said, I was pretty lucky through my whole chemo treatment. My hair is growing back, my eyelashes are coming in, I'm sure in a few months I'll have a cute little pixie cut that I can rock. In the meantime, I'm going to take it one day at a time and look forward to my next planned vacation - Disney World with the family!
