Hi New to group

Hi San12

Welcome to the womb group.

I am sorry to hear that your post op results indicate that you need chemo and radiotherapy. It can feel a shock to be told that further treatment is needed, if you were not expecting it. 

My own cancer was in 2022 and I also had another type of grade 3 cancer. There are several different types and serous is one of them.

Being told I needed chemo and also radiotherapy was scary and overwhelming and it can help to focus on one thing at a time. 

I had chemo first and it started around 6 weeks post surgery. I was invited in for a consents appointment where they checked that I had recovered from surgery enough and did routine things like bloods. They went through the treatment, what would happen and any possible side effects. 

My chemo (and it does seem to be the most common one) was carboplatin and paclitaxel and was on a 21 day cycle. Day 1 was at the hospital and then home the same day for 20 days. I had 4 cycles, some ladies have 6. During each cycle I had a review from my consultant.

I did have some side effects but on the whole they were manageable with medication. Side effects were a similar pattern with each cycle and fatigue did build up as time went on. The first week of each cycle I would feel quite rough but by week 2 I would start to feel more myself. Week 3 I was able to go out and about and do things- although I did feel tired. 

Hair loss can be a worry for many people and I used scalp cooling and kept a lot of hair. If you do want to know a bit more, please ask. 

Avoiding infection is important and they will go through this with you and give you a 24 hour number for the hospital. It is a good idea to get an accurate thermometer and get to know your normal temperature. 

Chemo can affect people differently and I found going with the flow the best thing to do and to listen to my body. The first week I did need to rest a lot. 

My radiotherapy appointment took place just before my final chemo session and I had a planning scan. Radiotherapy started around a month after my final chemo day. I had 25 sessions of external beam radiotherapy. Most of my side effects were tummy related but helped by medication. I did find it quite tiring. 

My advice is to focus on one treatment at a time. You are still recovering from your surgery and I would expect that you will soon get an appointment to go through the next treatment. Then try to focus on that one. 

If there is anything you want to specifically ask about, please do so. I also felt very scared before the treatments but in reality once the first ones were done, I was more on a countdown to get another one ticked off. It can feel tough when the treatments are all ahead of you but I found that once they began, time went a lot quicker than I thought it would.

If talking things through would help, please do give the Support Line a call, there is someone there from 8am-8pm daily. 

Jane

Hi San 12 

I had a stage 2 serous diagnosis on 13th August and a robotic hysterectomy on 7th Sept. The surgeon found and took out my sentinel lymph nodes so waiting on results (the wait is horrible). I’m expecting at least radiotherapy and possibly like you, chemo too. Would be good to keep in touch and do this together! Fingers crossed for your treatment x

Same to you as well. Yes let’s get each other through this awful disease x

Thanks Jane glad you came through all the treatments and thank you for answering me. I’m going to concentrate on getting over this op like you said focus on one thing at a time. it was just wasn’t what I was expecting when I went back to the hospital. Thought the op would have been it so it freaked me out. 
talking on this group is helping 

I agree with everything Jane has said, including focussing on one thing at a time. I was stage 3a and did radio first with 2 lots of Cisplatin, followed by the 4 lots of Carboplatin/paclitaxel. I couldn’t get my head around the further chemo, so knowing I was doing radio first I asked my oncologist if we could kick any discussions about chemo into the long grass. He agreed, thought it was sensible approach and neither he or his team mentioned it to me until i raised it at end of radio. This really helped me.

I started my radio about 7/8 weeks post op.

How you feeling now after the chemo and radio ? And did you have many side effects ? The thought of having chemo and radio therapy is scaring me 

I did reasonably well through the radiotherapy, the fatigue kicked in suddenly 2 days after I had the second lot of Cisplatin with it(some people have Cisplatin with their radio others don’t). I was then very tired until I finished the radio. Was told the effects can worsen the two weeks after completing and then you start to feel better. I saw oncologist  6 days after completing and he thought I was doing so well, he was happy to start the chemo the next day! Er no….started it a couple of weeks later.

re the radio, I had some bowel issues but nothing major, I took Imodium once every three days and that seemed to do the trick. I did get a little queasy travelling back after each session, so ate small bags of cheddars which helped.

I really didn’t want to do the further chemo, and emotionally losing my hair was a huge issue for me, which meant I became a bit of a recluse, didn’t do as much walking as I had been, and was paranoid about getting an infection as I live on my own.

The give you steroids for first 3 days, so I felt full of energy then….i also got them to give me sleeping tablets as sleep and I aren’t friends at best of times, so had 7 days worth each cycle. They give you anti nausea tablets for first 3 days, and then give different ones to use after this if you need them. I then found out at day 9/10 of first cycle that these different ones were causing me stomach problems, feeling yucky, so stopped taking them, and I didn’t use them for subsequent cycles and felt much better. Lesson learnt from this, I should have called the 24 hour number earlier. They also gave me mouth wash, because I thought I was getting sores, but didn’t really suffer from this, think it was helping to prevent.

Yucky taste in month lasted about 9 days, lemon sweets, ginger biscuits helped, and it was always good when I suddenly realised I wasn’t reaching for the lemon sweets each cycle.

should say apart from when I was taking the additional anti nausea tablets, I didn’t feel sick.

Generally for me, I felt OK first 3 days, not great days 4 to 9, and then I started feeling a little better. I did get more and more fatigued with each cycle though.

I hope this helps, it is doable, but do reach out to the 24 hour line when you need to, even if it’s to get reassurance.

do you know when you will be starting?

How you doing ? Have you been back yet to check on your recovery?

im back for bloods today and to see oncologist so nervous

Thanks for that helps me to prepare myself.

i start on Wednesday next week chemo 

Good luck for Wednesday. Xx