Pneumonectomy

Hi Holiday hopeful sorry you haven’t had a reply to your post yet. I haven’t had personal experience of chemo or immunotherapy, but will bump your post, and hopefully someone will be along to chat with you soon. 

Ahh thank you, I understand we are not all battling the same symptoms etc I just thought if there was someone they could maybe give me any advice

Hello Holiday hopeful,

I had 4 cycles of cisplatin (a "close relative" of carboplatin) and vinorelbine after my pneumonectomy in case anything was left floating around.

I attended 2 separate days each cycle - cisplatin which took about 3/4 of a day due to required fluid flushing before and after administration and vinorelbine just about an hour from start to finish. In addition I saw a chemo nurse between each cycle to check all was OK, answer a load of questions, have blood test and blood pressure check before the next cycle was approved. They do keep a good eye on you.

On each visit I was given drugs including anti-sickness and steroids to take for a few days afterwards and it was stressed that these must be taken whether you feel the need to or not.

Effects were pretty standard for chemo, you might get some of the following, but everyone is different: 

* my hair thinned but was not all lost and I was advised to use baby shampoo on it and treat it very gently. Other affects included:

* constipation (not nice, if it starts for get proper laxatives from the chemo unit or your GP quickly to head off the worst of it - don't waste your money on chemist shop remedies).

* mouth ulcers - same as above, chemist bought pastilles were useless for this and a waste of money.

* nausea and loss of appetite - but I lost weight without effort which was a minor bonus!

* fatigue, so you have to pace yourself and rest.

* taste in food was completely changed and I just ate what I could / fancied. In my case my tastes changed temporarily and I was advised to just eat what I could for the calories. Everything went back to normal afterwards.

* generally just feeling "off it" as side effects do get slowly worse as you progress through treatment.

* I did get mild neuropathy in my feet, but nothing to severely affect mobility. My GP prescribed something to help and it went away after a while and tablets stopped.

The good news is that, when you finish the effects do slowly lift and you start to feel better. Also good news for me is that this was all 11 years ago so it was probably well worth sticking to it at the time.

I didn't have immunotherapy because it didn't exist as a treatment at the time, so this will no doubt boost the effectiveness of your treatment.

I hope you get on OK, if there's anything specific you'd like to ask I'll do my best to answer.

All the best,

Derek.

Thank you again derek for responding to me, I was telling my lung nurse about you the other day and how well you’ve done. I am not going to lie I am absolutely dreading this bit this is the part I really didn’t want to have ( well tbh I didn’t want any of it of course) I just keep telling myself it’s just for 3 months. I am positive you will be hearing from again before long.

Tracey x

I think you've got the right approach to this, best of luck and I hope it's a complete success.

Derek.