im about to have surgery to look at a cyst, i had one removed a while ago but another grew, because the cells are precancerous, if i DO have another cyst, they’ll be removing it and then putting me on chemotherapy…i don’t understand a lot about chemo therapy and im really nervous about it, i know about the loss of hair and sickness but that’s about it.any help?
thanks x
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Be optomistic….I know it’s hard to do, but if it helps…..my Aunt was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer (I think thats how to word it) and they only gave her about a year to live. After Chemo, and some surgery, she was in remission. This was about 10 years ago and she is still alive and kickin’! You will be tired,lack of energy, and such, but just be optomistic…..It does you no good to sit and think of the down side of things. Keep telling yourself you will kick cancers ASS and you will win this battle!
Hey, number one be optimistic. I had 2 cysts last year, this years I had 29. The biggest one was 1 cm. Do not be scared, if it is cancer, it is small, be glad it was found, go to chemotherapy, be strong. Your hair will grow back and you will be healthy in no time. DO not panic, I went through something similar a few months ago and I am fine now. You will be ok.
hello
thinking about receiving cancer chemotherapy would probably make ANYONE nervous, but I have a feeling in your particular case that the chemotherapy will not be too aggressive. In other words, yes, chemotherapy can cause hair loss, nausea/vomiting, nerve pain, diarrhea, and whole list of undesirable side effects. The thing to remember is that NOT ALL chemotherapy causes these side effects. For example, only certain chemo drugs are notorious for causing hair loss, while others do not. Also, there are a lot of ways to minimize these side effects to prevent them altogether. It doesn’t sound like you will be receiving very aggressive treatment and truth is, be thankful that this was discovered early. The reason cancer is responsible for so many deaths is because of our inability to detect it early enough. Symptoms often don’t arise until it has become so advanced that treatment is often not enough. Chemotherapy has come a long way and I wouldn’t be too nervous, just ask questions about the medications you may receive and be well informed. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to ask them how “aggressive” they’re being with treatment.
BEST OF LUCK WITH YOUR TREATMENT:-)
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Hope you have good news - but if you do need chemo, listen to YOUR body. Everyone reacts differently, so don’t listen to ‘friends’ who try and tell you the worst. Often it’s Chinese whispers, and exaggerated with the telling!
If you do have chemo, one thing that is usual is being tired - don’t try and fight it. Plan time to take a nap. And look on for more info about dealing with side effects - if they happen.
Good luck
Verite R
Of course anyone would wish the best scenario, that is only natural but then it is good you are finding out about the worst case as a possibility too.
Chemotherapy drugs attack the good and bad cells in the body. There are many different type of chemotherapy drugs that can work in combinations of one or more together during different phases of treatment.
For example:
The surgeon and oncologist determines that the tumor can be reduced before surgery so they give you chemotherapy first to reduce the tumor and then will remove it. They could give you so many weeks of various drugs and then perform surgery.
That was our case with breast cancer. We had 15 weeks of Cytoxin and Adriamycin. The tumor was reduced to the size of a small grain of rice and then the oncologist recommended 12 weeks of another chemotherapy drug called Taxol. (to chase any cancer cells that may have entered the bloodstream).
Treatments vary depending upon your particular situation. It could be weekly, or every three weeks or some combination thereof. The Cytoxin was a daily dose taken in pill form. Then every week we went in for the Adriamycin.
Here is a typical day of chemotherapy getting it at the ward.
You have an appointment with the oncologist to talk about how you are doing so far in your treatment. But first you will get your blood drawn to see if you have enough white blood cells to get treatment that day.
The nurse will take your weight, and blood pressure and you will tell them what things you are taking for your cancer treatments. Example are dietary supplements that can be prescribed by a naturopathic doctor if you are using one. (highly recommended)
Then the oncologist comes in and talks to you about your treatment so far. How you are feeling and address any of your concerns. If changes need to be done, they will do it. After that they will fill out the order for the chemotherapy drugs.
You will then (if ok by blood test) go to where they administer the drugs. If it is your first time they will take good care of you and tell you exactly what to expect.
We were going in for so many chemotherapy treatments 27 in all that we had the surgeon put a port in the chest to administer the chemotherapy drugs and also to access it for the blood draws. This really makes it easier for the nurses and yourself when getting chemotherapy. Otherwise they will need to use the veins and after a while it could be harder for them to find good veins.
Ask for warm blankets. You will probably be seated in a lounge chair. They will offer you a bag lunch to eat and offer you water to drink. My wife would bring her own slippers for comfort.
The nurses will then give you some premeds. Usually a couple of bags before the actual chemotherapy drug. The first one to relax you, the second for anti-naseau, and finally the chemotherapy drug itself.
Before they do that two nurses should verify your name and birthdate. They will also check that the right amount of drugs prescribed by the oncologist is in the bags for administration.
The first time it will be slower because they want to see how your body takes to the drug itself. After it is done could take a few hours you will go home.
I always had a dinner made up the day before so all I had to do was heat it up in the microwave or put it in the oven. After dinner my wife would go to sleep.
Every treatment, no matter how you take to it will be WORSE than the last treatment, so it has a cumulative effect.
Not everyone responds to the drugs the same way. My wife never got sick as far as throwing up with chemotherapy.
Your best days will be the day before and the day of your chemotherapy treatment. The worst days will be two days after. My wife had hers on Wednesday. It seemed that the weekends were the worst beginning on Friday. Monday she could do things but would need rest.
Things my wife experienced with the first group of drugs:
It started out with fatigue, then mouth sores, body aches and pains, constipation, fingernails and toenails becoming brittle and possibly falling out. Eyelashes going about the third week, followed by hair-loss and watery eyes.
The Cytoxin was the worst, my wife felt immediately better once she was off of that.
Her hair began to grow back between after her surgery but then she began Taxol treatments. It did not affect her hair growth back but did cause her eyebrows to fall out. And is still doing it three weeks after her last treatment.
Taxol was more nerve damage than anything. Fatigue was also a factor but not as much. Numbness in her finger and toes, sometimes a patients lose their balance.
That is the extent of chemotherapy drugs for us.
After 3 weeks of being off of chemotherapy, numbness in her fingers are gone, so back to normal but she still feels some in her toes.
She still has watery eyes, and her eyelashes and brows seem to be still falling out.
To be honest your reaction to chemotherapy varies by the type of chemo and the person and how aggressive they get with it. My dad has done 2 hospital stays of chemo where he does 5 bags of chemo around the clock he’s on it 24 hours a day for 7 days. He hasn’t lost his hair which is short anyways but he still has his beard and he’ll get nauseous but hasn’t vomited at all it Truly does vary good luck