Chemo, pump and childcare advice!

W

With regard to the pump, a tube goes from your PICC/Port under your clothes to a small bottle of chemo meds.  I recommend having a bum bag to hold the bottle around your waist.  It doesn’t make a noise.  Showering is difficult for those 2 days so be prepared with lots of baby wipes or have an old fashioned wash down each day.  
You are given steroids to get you through the first couple of days but the tiredness would then hit me around day 4 to day 8. You’re also given anti sickness drugs and Imodium - take them as soon as needed,

It’s difficult to know in advance how you’ll react, some people sail through and others have a harder time. I would have childcare backup on standby for the harder days.

Good luck 

Lee

Many thanks for your reply Lee - this is all very useful to know. Glad the pump doesn't make any noise, that's a relief. I've heard days 4-8 can be a challenge. Will see about childcare backup - unfortunately it won't be possible all the time so I think I'll have to just power on through!

Hello SazzleDazzleabd88d,

I completely echo what Lee has said.

I had FolFox in 2021 with a 48 hours pump and was provided with a bag to hold it. It doesn’t make a noise and isn’t really noticeable if in a bag. After each 48 hours cycle I had to go to the clinic to have it removed, but I’ve heard sometimes the nurse comes to you to remove it.

As you can see my chemo was a different one to yours but on a previous post I’ve listed how I felt on a day to day basis (community.macmillan.org.uk/.../bowel-cancer-diagnosis. I kept a diary to see if a pattern emerged, which it did.

My big concern was neuropathy too. I did go to great lengths to keep my hands and feet warm all the time and massaged my feet & hands with moisturiser 12 to 20 times a day for quite a few minutes at a time. Luckily I haven’t suffered from neuropathy (other than my left foot feels weird if it gets cold) but whether this was luck or down to massage I don’t know.

To put in some context I was in my mid 60s when diagnosed and I don’t think I’d have been able to cope with looking after young children during chemo, but some of that could be attributed to my age, although I can manage to look after my grandchildren now although I’m shattered at the end of the day!

If possible I’d have someone on standby to help out.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes

Net77

Hi Net77,

Apologies for this very delayed reply! Thanks for all this very detailed information about the pump, really helpful! Just need to explain to the kids now what it is and not to pull the leads haha! Also really helpful to know about the massaging - really great idea, I'll definitely give it a go. Thanks for sharing your update thread too - I'll take a look closely. Sounds like I'll definitely need some help with the kids. Never thought I'd be in this situation...or at least they'd be a bit older before I was! Feeling quite depressed today as I saw in my oncologist notes the cancer was described as 'poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma' which Google tells me is a bad thing! I need to stop Googling...!

Also very glad to hear you're able to play an active grandparent role with the grandkids, that's great news!

Best wishes!