Chemo

Hi Coolblue,

The effects for me took hold three days after chemo began. The effects are quite individual from what I've read.

I have chemo on Friday and by Sunday evening I'm feeling quite rough, tired, fatigued, etc. Other things that bother me after that for next seven or eight days are, nausea, sickness, skeletal pain from the ECGF injections, taste badly effected, no appetite, poor sleep.

I too was looking forward to a week or two away between my first chemo and operation but had to cancel when they bought my op forwards.

I hope this helps a little. Please read my profile which I have written as a sort of journal. That meet help too 

Best regards

Geo.

Thanks Geo, that’s very helpful, as is your journal which I regularly refer to for sequencing, timescales, etc. Hope you’re coping ok with your post op chemo. Do you mind me asking what surgery you had? I’m due to have the top third of my stomach and bottom half of my oesophagus removed. Regards, CoolBlue

Hi Cool Blue, I have had 4 rounds of chemo and the side effects were not pleasant.

First round the worst with a nasty headache that kept me in bed for a day. I had bad pins and needles in hands and feet, bad taste in mouth and some diarrhea. All of these got gradually better after each round. The last round was reduced in strength as the pins and needles are your nerve endings being damaged.

You may not get any of these as everyone is different but bad taste in mouth , pins and needles and tiredness seem to be very common

I hope everything goes well for you and if any side effects get really bad talk to the cancer team and they can adjust the treatment

Good luck

Dean

That’s very helpful Dean. Thankyou. I believe you mentioned in some other thread that you are scheduled for surgery at the end of December? Do you mind me asking the nature of this? Trying to figure if mine is fairly standard. Regards, CoolBlue

Hi Cool Blue,

My surgeon said he could do it two ways one was a smaller cut near my naval and a cut in my back. The second was one cut only but larger than option one in my back. I went for option two as I already have several scars on my front from burnouts operations. Also haveing just one door area sounded preferable.

It all went fine. I had some pain trying to get the epidural in my back prior to op. After got times of trying they knocked me out and did it, but I'm glad they did. It gave very good coverage after the op.

You are going to be sore after for sure but the nurses are fantastic at keeping you as comfy as possible and the care at Derby was second to none. A couple of days after they will be getting you up and into a chair which for me was lovely even if sore to do  you will have pipes and boots all over but they will come out after about a week. You have to go for a swallow test so they can see that your knewly joined Oesophagus isn't leaking. Then all the tubes and drains will come out and you'll feel a lot better for that. I was in for nine days in total but others around me had been in for a few weeks due to infections and the like.

I was a bit worried at the start but came away fine. Eight it nine hours of surgery will do that to you.

It's going to affect your eating that's for sure. I had 3/4 of my stomach took away and oesophagus if course. It takes a lot of getting used to. I feel sick a lot of the time just looking at food never mind eating it.

I had to ask for stronger anti sickness meds. I'm now on my second four rounds of chemo. They reduced me to 85% which I've been pleased about as not having quite as bad a reaction as I did first time around.

Good luck with it all and let us know how you get on.

Geo 

Hi yes of course, the op is to remove the section of the oesophagus that has the tumour along with moving upper intestine. They estimate 6 to 8 hrs. Waiting on results of yesterday's Petscan which will determine what is next , because if the 4 rounds of chemo have done well they may just do 4 more rounds without op. 

I'm preparing for op so any better news is a bonus

This type of operation is more common now as they do 2 a week now as opposed to 20 or so a year!

Wish you all the best

Dean