Recovery After Chemo

Hi. I think as chemo is so personalised it's difficult to say how long it's going to take. My oncologist said it takes 6 weeks minimum for the drugs to leave your system.  Personally my chemo journey wasn't too bad. I had one or two bumps along the way and at one point was getting v friendly with the oncology nurses at my local hospital ( temperature spikes caused first by sepsis then parainfluenza) but I was well enough when finished to go abroad on holiday a couple of weeks later. As you said COVID won't help you and the flu I had floored me for about a fortnight. 

Hi KMT, sorry to hear you are still feeling side effects. Like F1 petrolhead said it’s difficult to say as everyone is different. I got covid 2 days after I had my last chemo cycle. I was given antivirals and found that with my body having chemo drugs and the antivirals it didn’t really know how to react. I found I actually felt better than I did whilst I was just having chemo. I’ve now completed radiotherapy too 9 weeks ago and I have found my energy levels have dropped. I can’t do as much as I did before but I’m hoping things will return to normal but it’s just taking its time. I was told to rest when needed and that will in turn help the cells boost themselves too. I think we all will return to normal at some stage it’s just longer for some than others. I find doing lots of things I love in between the usual everyday chores helps and gives a good boost. 
Hope you feel more like yourself soon

Hugs from cuffcake x x x x x

Hi

Thank you, that's really helpful .

Thank you.

I think maybe I need to rest and be a bit more patient rather than expecting to feel so much better straight away.

It took me a few months to stop feeling the fatigue and about a year or so to feel like I had gotten over the chemo. I had read it takes about twice as long to recover from you treatment than having it. I classed that as my main treatment of chemo (which I had first), lumpectomy then radiotherapy and it probably did take about 14 months after 7 months of treatment.

Having said that, it will depend on your chemo, what other treatment you are having, whether surgery was first etc. I'm not back to the old me, 2.5 years later, and not sure I ever will be. I'm also on hormone therapy which makes me feel pretty tired out.

Things do improve significantly though, and I am very much enjoying life again.

Morning

That's really helpful thank you. I wasn't expecting to feel great as soon as chemo had finished but think I was expecting to feel significantly better but obviously these things take time. I feel a bit disappointed that there was no discussion with the hospital as to how I should expect to feel after chemo as think that might have put my mind at rest a bit.

To be honest I've found my oncologist is more negative and a bit out of date in terms of treatment and recovery. He tends to go down the more.negative route. He said I would have tattoos for my radiotherapy which hasn't been done for three years. And when I discussed cold cap he was a bit dismissive. The nurses and radiographers are more up to date.