Upcoming chemo

Hi .

Hi and welcome to the board. Unfortunately chemo affects everybody differently and yes there are lot of side effects but there is lots of help to deal with them. There are lots of different tablets for sickness and diarrhoea, creams for sore feet, mouth washes and the nurses keep a close eye on you and will refer to the consultant with any concerns - sometimes just a small reduction in doseage can make a huge difference.

I think the best things for now is to discuss this with the consultant and see what chemo they suggest and how beneficial it will be to you. At the end of the day they won’t force you to have it but I felt I had to throw everything I could at the cancer and, although it’s not nice, I just kept ticking off each session and even managed to work part-time through it.

Please let us know how your consultation goes and we’ll hopefully be able to offer you some coping tips

Take care

Karen x

Hi Zanna

I am in the same position as you in that I am recovering from major bowel surgery and about to face 3 months of chemo. I did have a course of chemo radiation last summer and was dreading it, but was lucky not to have many side effects at all- just fatigue. I think the very word 'chemo' does strike fear in everyone but in reality can be less terrible than we think, and you get lots of support from your oncologist and team to minimise the impacts as much as possible in my experience. Sean