The Many Faces of Chemo

Sunday 31st August

I just wanted to clear something up as it’s been playing on my mind lately.

Prior to starting chemo I heard lots of comments from people who knew someone who had been through chemo and “they breezed through it”, “they didn’t lose their hair”, they worked through it”, “they ran through it”, “they slept for 24 hours and then were fine”, “it was nowhere near as bad as we thought”.

I want to make it clear that there are many many chemo drugs, about 40 and all have different side effects. There are particular regimes for breast cancer all of which are known to be quite brutal. These include TAC, EC, TAC-EC, FEC, TAX and FEC-T. Some people have 4 rounds and some have 6. The magic number is 4 rounds but if your Oncologist thinks you can take it, you will have 6.

Just because one person with breast cancer has four rounds of TAC as an example, does not mean that another will too. I’m currently in touch with quite a few girls who have breast cancer, some are on EC, some on TAC-EC others on FEC and some on FEC-T.  Your chemo regime depends on lots of factors including, the type of breast cancer, your age, your general health, your fitness, weight and the health of your heart and liver.

As you know my Chemo regime is called FEC-T and I am having six rounds. This regime is apparently the most brutal and hard going. The reason I have had FEC-T is because of my age the fact that I was physically fit and also due to the type of cancer I had my Oncologist wanted to “throw the book” at me.  ”Throwing the book” will also mean that I will have four weeks of Radiotherapy as opposed to the usual three.

I spent some time feeling that I was perhaps weak because I have found my last few rounds really hard going, but after speaking to MacMillan I now realise that the reason I’m finding it hard going is because FEC-T is in fact hard going. The MacMillan nurse told me “it’s about as strong as it gets” and I heard that one Oncologist called it "Domestos strength chemo"!! I'm glad about this of course, because this means that any cancer cells hanging around my body have got no chance against FEC-T. In terms of side effects though and the damage it is doing to my body it’s pretty grim.

I'm pretty much recovered from my last round, apart from the fatigue and chemo brain. I feel ok(ish) but I'm tired, really tired. I just don’t have the energy I had at the beginning. I went for a lovely long walk today, I pushed myself, could feel my heart pounding in my head but it felt good to move. As soon as I got home though it hit me and I had to sleep.

As for my chemo brain, I realised how bad it was the other day when I was chatting to someone I hadn't seen for a while. I became aware of my long pauses (while I was trying to find the word or remember what I was saying). We both actually found it quite funny, which it was, but its scary to think that this could last months and in some cases years!!

My final round of chemo will take place on Monday 8th September. I'm looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time. I’m starting to feel quite excited about the fact that I can start to have a normal life again but the thought of doing one more round scares me. To be honest I feel defeated by chemo. It has come into my life and punched and kicked me every three weeks since the end of May. I’ve had enough of it now and kinda feel like one more round might just finish me off. I just need to get through those three weeks, painkillers, mouthwash and sanity in hand.

I will not be celebrating the end of chemo on the 8^th September as actually as far as I’m concerned the end of chemo will be at the end of the three week cycle. The end of my chemo regime will be marked on Sunday 28^th September. I’ll tell you how I’m going to celebrate it nearer the time.