Good morning all,
After a year of being cancer free after being diagnosed of Stage1 Seminoma and having adjuvant Carboplatin back in summer of 2017, my cancer returned this year into my pelvic lymph nodes and I am now going trough 3 rounds of BEP chemotherapy.
I am currently on my second week of my 1st round of BEP, I did my first week 5 days as inpatient now at home.
This is just a little insight of how my chemo goes and how do i feel.
The 5 days in row it felt alright at the hospital all i felt was a bit of nausea and fatigue but was managed well by the antisickness tablets and a lot of sleep. I hear a lot of complain about NHS but the staff at the hospital, doctors,nurses and all Macmillan staff are just simply amazing and making this horrible journey much easier! However once I got out of the hospital and got home a really uncomfortable feeling just hit me and I did not feel good at all. It is funny enough I can not describe this feeling in other words than its like "living in someone else`s body" and it is a worse feeling than the nausea or the fatigue as i feel like I don`t know this body, he doesn`t know me :P I know sounds extra crazy. I did not have ear issues, I didn`t have enough tingling in the fingers, so far the side effects been just nausea, fatigue, probably a bit of "depression" even tho I dont fee mentally down but just this feeling which pushing me that makes me feel like living in someone else`s body :) Oh and Chemo brain, now this is for real :) Slow thinking forgetting things but it is actually funny sometimes.
And so far my favourite foods while on chemo : Corn flakes and toast and butter. Whenever I felt hungry and nauseous these foods I was still able to eat and even stopped my nausea couple of times.
Also, i have to give myself some injections at home (Zarzio Filgastim) to boost my neutrophils but last night I experienced the biggest pain in my entire life. Apparently this injection causing some bone pain as it puts the bone marrow in turbo mode to produce neutrophils and my one felt like a machine gun would keep shooting in my pelvic and lower back bones non stop for about 8 hours. But luckily this has stopped and I do not need more injection of this probably until the second week of my 2nd round which I am already affraid of. So far this injection was the worst thing that has happened during this first cycle.
Now I am wondering how should i prepare for the second round? Does anyone has advice from own experience? Is it more difficult than the first? Is it gets worse?
I know this affects everyone differently but I would really like to read some of your experiences.
Keep up the good fight!
Huni
Hi Huni
I'm sorry to hear all you went through during your first round of chemotherapy so I can quite understand why you'd want advice on how to prepare for the second round. As I don't have any experience with chemotherapy I'm afraid I can't help but I noticed that your post had gone unanswered. By replying it will push the post back to the top of the page where hopefully someone with the right experience will see it and reply.
If you don't get any responses you could post your question in ask a nurse, where one of the specialist nurses will aim to get back to you within 24 hours, or phone the Macmillan Support Line and speak to one of the specialist nurses on there. It's free to call on 0808 808 0000 and is available between 8am and 8pm 7 days a week.
I hope your second round of treatment is easier for you than the first was.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
