My partner is starting 3 cycles of BEP in a couple of weeks and I am wondering if anyone could give me any advice on what to expect, how to support and help him?
My partner prepared himself with a tablet and some good headphones for his hospital visits to keep him occupied.
If your partner is having his cycles spread out over 9 weeks with 1 stay and two top ups per cycle - He will probably be tired a lot, my partner ate lots of bland food (we called it a school boy diet, he only wanted beige beige beige)
My partner had all of his chemo off work, he spent a lot of the time on the sofa - he tried to get himself out for a walk when he had the energy. He kept in reasonable spirits and we watched lots of Netflix!
We kept visitors to an absolute minimum, I don't think anyone came in the house for the whole time and did all of our shopping home delivered. (He started in Feb 2021)
Once you're in it, things seemed to pass quite quickly, celebrate each round - best of luck.
I only went through 1 cycle of carboplatin but I know what helped for me. I set up our spare room as a comfortable place to sit and read in isolation when I wanted to. If you have space to do this it might help. I got quite paranoid about silly things like trip hazards and potential for burns in the kitchen, so if possible try to keep clutter to a minimum. Sleep cycles can be thrown out, so routines aren't easy to stick to. It's really about taking advantage of the times he feels relatively good, and there will be lots of times like that, but also letting him retreat into a quiet place on the not so good days. It's just a slog, but it does end.
