Living with ovarian cancer

Hi and a very warm welcome to the online community

I'm sorry to read that you were diagnosed with ovarian cancer earlier this year after already being diagnosed with secondary breast cancer.

I don't have the experience that you're after but I noticed that your post hadn't had any response yet. While you're waiting for replies, if you type 'ovarian and secondary breast' into the search bar in this group you'll find a number of previous posts which mention this. You could have a read through those and respond to any of the more recent ones.

I hope you don't mind me suggesting that you also join the secondary breast cancer group and post your question there as well. If this is something that you'd like to do just click on the link that I've created and then choose 'click to join' or 'join' (depending on the device you're using) on the page that opens. You can then introduce yourself and post questions in the same way as you did here and join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'. 

When you have a minute, it would be really useful if you could pop something about your journey so far into your profile as it really helps others when answering or looking for someone with a similar diagnosis. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.

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Hi 

Sorry to hear the position you are in. I don't have the experience of having secondary breast cancer but wanted to get in touch. I was diagnosed in April this year and have just recently started or niraparib.  How are you feeling about starting the drug?

To be honest I’m a bit nervous after reading the paperwork I was given regarding Niraparib. There seem to be quite a lot of side effects. I realise I might not be affected by them all, but having only recently started to feel better following illness and chemotherapy, I’m worried in case I’ll feel like I’m back at ‘square one’.

You are right the list of side effects is long and quite scary and I am not gonna pretend I wasn't feeling exactly the same way about starting them. Alot of the side effects (if you get any) can be tackled with something else so there are things that can be put in place should you need them. So I started on December 1st and for first week I would dread taking them each night because of how they made me feel.  Now tho I believe my body has adjusted to the tablets and instead of feeling nauseous 70% of the time it's maybe 5%. I would suggest taking them at night as if you are affected with feeling nauseous it does help to be able to curl up and sleep. I still feel very tired but again I hope over time my body will adjust to this new normal.  I definitely had a time in those first few days where I thought if this is how it's gonna be then I don't wanna do this but things got better and hopefully they will for you too if you need them to. Also sometimes wonder if we freak ourselves out with the side effects of these drugs because we pay so much attention to them when it comes to cancer or any disease really. I might go read the side effects of paracetamol and ibuprofen. I think I would probably be shocked. 

Have you a date for starting Niraparib? Any word on if it will help the secondary breast cancer?