Day 1: 24 hours after the treatment and physically, I’m feeling much the same as immediately before the treatment; I am surmising that this is down to the ‘Dexa’ steroids I had in advance. So, I have taken advantage of this and just spent two hours in the garden demolishing some over exuberant brambles and looking after my tomatoes.
Evening time now and I’m still feeling fine, I’ve eaten well today – thanks to my gorgeous wife and her superb cooking – I want to get in as much good nutrition as I can before the effects bed-in. I spent the afternoon on some business admin, brain still sharp at the moment.
Day 2: 48 hours after treatment and I’ve woken up to my first effects. I have a very dry mouth, I am a little ‘foggy’ in my head and of course I have fatigue. The plan is to take things a little easier today and see how things unfold.
‘Heavy’ arms have been the theme for the afternoon / evening, with some tingling in my hands and feet. The tingling was short-lived and relatively minor. I still have a dry mouth, but no nausea or digestion issues, if fact I’m eating quite well.
Day 3: although my reaction so far is more than manageable, I did have a very disrupted night’s sleep – mostly because of the dryness in my mouth really. However, I have woken up and I feel not too bad, definitely still fatigued, but my arms aren’t ‘heavy’ anymore, I’m still foggy headed, but still no tummy issues.
I was up and about properly this afternoon, did a little work for the What Next charity. I am very pleased to be feeling this way during my first cycle. I know subsequent cycles will be harder, as some of the effects are cumulative, so a difficult start would have made everything feel daunting. At the moment the treatment feels more than manageable.
Day 4: the anaemia has kicked into today and I’m still getting periodically light-headed. My mouth is still very dry much of the time and my taste has now started to change properly; most of my sweet notes are gone.
Day 5: overall, I’m pretty happy with where I am today. I feel that I’m on the improving side of the equation now, still a little tired and anaemic, the issues with taste are irritating, but minor really, and I’m still getting dizziness. However, if I was offered this outcome before I started chemotherapy, I would have gladly grabbed it immediately. I’ll be out and about helping run our local Library of Things this afternoon, which is great news.
Day 6: tired and anaemic, but functional. Spent the morning bottling our homemade wine. We have a fantastic grape vine on our drive, very prolific with fruit. We made the wine in October 2025 – pre-Desdemona days – and it’s been fermenting away in demi-johns since then. Now in bottles (about 10 litres of if), we’ll lay some down until Christmas when I hope I will be able to participate in drinking some.
Day 7: I had to call the oncology hotline overnight. I’d been having lots of hot flushes, so thought I’d check my temperature, and it was low, 35.6 DegC, I checked over a period of one-hour and it ranged from 35.5 to 35.9 DegC. I rang the hotline, left my details and they called me back within 10 mins, which was great. I was asked about other symptoms, of which there were none, and told to continue monitoring, but if I started to develop a fever or any chills that I should go direct to A&E. It’s now morning and my temperature is 36.2 DegC, phew. Other than that, I’m feeling generally good, still anaemic and a little tired and very hungry.
