First chemo

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So had my first round of chemo Monday, and made the mistake of feeling all smug Monday / Tuesday as felt absolutely fine. Spent first couple of days in hospital under observation and was discharged yesterday afternoon. Right about then it hit me like a train, when I got home I climbed into bed and have pretty much been here ever since. Even when I'm awake I just wanna sleep although body won't always allow it, feels like it's on high alert which I guess is unsurprising. I am assuming this is pretty normal but reassurance and other people's experience welcome x

Thehighlander 7 days ago

HI Chris ChrisYorks you will always hear that every journey can be ever so different.

My main aggressive chemo had me on my 2 IV pumps 24/7 for over 120hrs over the 5 nights/ 6 days in hospital for each of the 6 cycles…..

On the first day my CNS had me up and out of my bed after breakfast, had me have a shower, get dressed then walked me round the corridor quadrangle for 15mins…… she then came back after lunch and dinner and did the same walks…… so I continued this for the other 6 days and did my best to keep active when I got home…… the funny thing about fatigue is the less you do the worse the fatigue and muscle mass loss will get

Mike (Thehighlander)

It always seems impossible until its done - Nelson Mandela

My cancer story

swift_dc 6 days ago

Hi Chris - I didn't get the same treatment as you, but some of the drugs are the same. My worst day by far was Day 1 evening. Then the other days my routine was go to hospital (depending on how tired I was I would take a 4 min taxi or walk the 1800 steps between my house and the ward... I was lucky), come back and go to bed. Leave the bed to get something to eat and go to the sofa. But no house chores, no putting the dishwasher, no cooking... I was too tired for that.

So the first 4-5 days of treatment were like that. Then over the weekend maybe go shopping or something but realistically not more than 4-5k steps and that was pushing it. The second week was better but I was still very tired to do any sort of normal stuff. Only on the last few days of the 'rest week' I would be able to recover and have energy to go for a long walk and do some cleaning around the house etc. Loads of sleep to, easy 10 hours a day when I was never sleeping more than 7.

So, pretty normal I'd say, the blood test results will also shed some light as if your white and red cells drop significantly (expected) your energy just goes to zero. And it is good to have a 'physiological' explanation for your tiredness.

With other type of cancers you hear people managing to get some exercise and continue a sort of normal life, but this is systemic treatment at relatively high dose, affects your whole organism, so the impact on the day to day is greater.

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