My dad was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma 4 years ago, where he also had non Hodgkin lymphoma develop too. He was treated with Chemo and everything was looking fine, we dealt with everything so positively, managed the moaning of the side effects he is a fairly grumpy person anyway so lol! Chemo stopped back to normal.
In 2018, he had a silent heart attack, which we later found out was due to the chemo damaging his arteries. In 2020, after a 3 monthly check up of was found that the lymphoma was back and needed treatment, he was put on a new drug called rituximab, he was having the treatment every 3 weeks, they reduced the doseage half way through as he was struggling with the side effects and as this wasn’t helping they moved it to 4 weekly. However, my self and my mum are struggling to deal with the side effects of this drug it’s like he is depressed, he doesn’t want to eat, doesn’t want to go out just sits and watches tele all day, gets annoyed when we go out as he says he is on his own all the time (myself and mum also work full time) it’s just so difficult to live with, we are becoming very snappy with each other, whenever we try to make a suggestion for food something to tickle his tastebuds he doesn’t want to know, he has also lost a lot of weight, which is concerning he is having build up drinks to help with this. But my whole point of this post is as a family member is it okay to feel annoyed by the way someone is even with a cancer diagnosis, it’s getting to the point where me and my mum feel we can’t live our own life with our upsetting dad, I know it’s hard but we also need time to enjoy ourselves. Sorry for the rant I just want to here other people’s experiences possibly on the same drug. Thanks
Hi
In answer to your main question - yes you are perfectly normal, if we look at your feelings when someone has cancer pretty much everything you say I think if covered.
I am really glad you came here though - the need to rant we all recognize so no need to apologize. We even have a special place The Room - Discussion Forum for especially good rants where we slam the door on the way out.
No experience with that particular drug I am afraid but concerns over food and eating and even outright battles are very common. Sometimes it can help to put the lead on to the patient with a concern of if they loose too much weight they will very likely end up in hospital. I know when my wife is really ill when she actually wants to go to hospital.
Do post on here whenever as someone is always listening.
<<hugs>>
Steve
