On four 21 day cycles of Xelox.
I was impressed by the chemo unit, care was excellent and other patients on the whole friendly, I’m not a great chatterer anyway. Fingers became sensitive to cold before I left the unit, I nearly dropped my mug!
First evening home I had to take one of the extra anti-sickness pills (you are given anti-sickness medication anyway) and it did the trick. Despite going to bed early that evening I couldn’t sleep until I had taken a pain killer, probably because of the steroids. As I couldn’t have cold drinks for 48 hours I had to go downstairs and heat some water to take the pill! I was told not to touch anything cold or my fingers would go tingly, who knew a wooden bannister is cold enough to affect you? I came back upstairs wearing the gloves I had fished out for opening the fridge, they are getting more of an airing than I expected and were filthy pretty quickly. Daughter ordered me some special ones that I can use on a keyboard as even that is too cold at times.
I have something called first bite syndrome where the first bite of any food hurts the inside of your cheeks, a bit like the tingling sensation from grapefruit juice but painful not a tingle, a few chews in and it is fine, thankfully this is wearing off because it literally made me scream.
I also had shooting pains in my head around day four and five but thankfully they stopped. I need to find my blood pressure monitor but it has disappeared and looking for it too hard is exhausting and not good for the blood pressure.
It is now Day 11 and I am fine when I don’t do much. I then think I am being lazy but soon find that my energy dips when I do very little, I do manage to go for walks most days.
I had itchy ankles but think that may have been insect bites from the said walks.
