Treatment

Hi and welcome back. It’s good to hear that your mum has recovered well and the cancer has been removed. Chemo is not the most pleasant of things but worth the ‘belt and braces’ if she can manage it. 

Unfortunately chemo has lots of side effects - your mum won’t necessarily suffer badly from them but sometimes forewarned is forearmed. Do you know what she will be having? Oxaliplatin can cause some strange reactions to the cold so she would benefit from having gloves and a scarf for leaving the chemo unit. It can also cause an electric shock type of sensation when touching or drinking anything cold so make sure any cold drinks have the edge taken off with a splash of hot water and she uses gloves for getting things out of the fridge.

Its worth keeping a diary to monitor any side effects as most are treatable and if one antisickness pill doesn’t work then there may be another that does. If she’s struggling then it’s quite usual for the doseage to be reduced.

The whole cancer process is draining for everyone involved but it’s good that your mum feels up to throwing everything possible at it and, at the end of the day, if she’s really struggling then she can call an end to the chemo knowing that she gave it her best shot.

If you let us know which chemo she’s having then I may be able to link you into some previous posts which cover what to expect.

Take care

Karen x

Hi  I had 30 weeks of low dose 5FU chemo, in case that's the same, and I can help at all. This was for the vascular invasion you mention, to mop up any possible baddies. I am clear a year down the line. (((Hugs)))

Hi thanyou for your reply. Mum is going to be having  Capecitabine. She starts on Thursday hopefully it will help. We have to keep everything crossed.  Ita been hard and I am not ashamed to admit I have had a few wobbles of late. Not sleeping much and emotional but we keep going