Vaccine

Hi Mecca,

Great news that your vaccination will be going ahead today & yes there is so much misinformation out there it’s a little bit frightening but you did exactly the right thing in checking with your chemo unit as they’re the people that are best to advise you right now! 

It’s only natural that you’re feeling a bit apprehensive about the start of your treatment on Monday but you have your sensible head on also viewing this as the beginning of your come back from this awful disease. 

My go to’s throughout treatment were Epsom or Dead Sea Salts for bathing (very soothing), plenty of aqueous cream for moisturising & washing, water wipes (available alongside the baby wipes in the supermarket) to use instead of toilet paper, toilet paper was too abrasive towards the end of treatment & pain relief I just alternated paracetamol & ibuprofen 2 hourly when needed as I couldn’t take the opiate based pain relief offered by my oncologist (I also took lansoprazole too to counteract my tummy issues with ibuprofen).

Just take things one day at a time, rest when needs be & you’ll be fine I’m sure. This treatment is short & sharp but as you see with so many of us it’s well worth it because it gives us our lives back. 

Good luck for both today & Monday, I’ll be thinking of you.

Nicola 

Thank you 

Thank you. I never thought about alternating the paracetamol and ibuprofen 2 hourly it will make a difference between counting down the minutes of 4 hourly fixes. I'd never heard of water wipes and believe me I would benefit from them right now. I'm going to take all of your advice . I'll let you know how I get on, I'm sure I'll be needing a 'shoulder' now and then so I hope that's okay xxx

How do you make things seem not that bad  I’m so grateful I found this group X x x 

Hi Mecca Nikki65 has covered a lot good points there. I would just add to moisturise from day 1. Aloe Vera gel ( without alcohol) is also very soothing but don’t use any creams just before radiotherapy. I used plain old salt in my baths, I had 2-3 a day. If you have any side effects please tell your radiographers as they can prescribe creams if necessary. Also, just to say my treatment was about 50% better than I thought it would be, it also seemed to go by very quickly. All the best for Monday and I hope today went ok. Bev x

Hi Linz17, 

Pre-treatment is a very scary place, you read all kinds of things about different people’s experiences & unfortunately naturally your mind automatically takes the worse bit from everything you read, puts all of those worse bits together & tells you this is going to be your experience whereas as with many people the reality of it isn’t as bad as you anticipate. I remember being terrified! It really was the encouragement & support from other members here that were further down the line & recovering from their own treatment experience that got me through those early days, I’ll be eternally grateful to those kind souls, so I’m pleased you found us too, hopefully the support we all can offer will help you through also. 

Nicola

1in1500

I was diagnosed last month and I start my treatment on Thursday next week. I take 2 paracetamol 4 hourly and then 2 tramadol two hours later for the pain and that also works. I get my covid jab tomorrow.

Hi Tracey jayne,

I had my first Covid vaccination yesterday, one down one to go

I had my pfizer vaccine before treatment 5 weeks ago but now the word (BBC) is that it is only 39% effective on cancer patients ! that we should have both vaccs within 3 weeks for it to be particularly effective.  my next vacc is still 7 weeks away, and i get the bus to treatment which is now full of schoolkids, some with no masks and plenty of attitude !