My first session of chemotherapy was June 16. My husband went with me to the cancer center. It started with pre-meds of Tylenol, Pepcid, IV Benadryl and steroids. The Benadryl made me crazy woozy. I couldn’t speak clearly. The pre-meds were followed by an infusion of Herceptin (the targeted therapy for the HER2 receptors) then an hour long infusion of Taxol. I was still woozy when it was time to leave and I spent most of the rest of the day on the couch.
Other than fatigue, I didn’t have other side effects from my chemotherapy. I was thankfully never nauseous. I didn’t lose my appetite. I was able to walk every day! On chemo days, my husband and I would walk early in the morning before treatment. The oncologist reduced the amount of Benadryl in my premedication so I wasn’t quite so loopy for the future sessions. After the first week, I had my husband drop me off and pick me up. There was really no need for him to be cooped up in the Cancer Center with me. I could rest and read and wasn’t particularly good company anyway.
It took a while for my hair to start falling out. I was even beginning to hope that I was going to be one of the rare cases who wouldn’t lose my hair. Unfortunately, after about a month, I started losing hair at an alarming rate. That was possibly the most difficult part of all the treatment for me.
During the treatment, I also met with an Integrative Health specialist. He recommended an additional cancer protocol that included Vitamin C infusions, Ozone infusions, off-label drugs and many additional supplements. All the drugs were sent to my pharmacy, so I went ahead and picked them up. (Having already met my out of pocket maximum by this time, there was no charge.) This made for a rather uncomfortable conversation with my oncologist’s PA because they all showed up on my chart! She did not recommend doing anything extra while I was on chemotherapy because they didn’t know if it would change the effectiveness of the chemo. I had not started the additional drugs or supplements, so I ended up not starting them during treatment. I found it impossible for me to follow both traditional and integrative recommendations at the same time.
After 6 weeks of Monday treatments, we were able to travel to a family reunion for my husband’s extended family in Kansas. I skipped 1 Monday of chemo, then resumed on Friday after returning. Friday turned out to be a better day for treatment once school started back: both allowing my husband to take me and me to begin teaching my writing classes on Thursdays beginning August 21.
During all my treatments, I was blessed to have 2 meals provided per week: one from church and one from my husband’s school. That was so helpful to have less cooking to do when I was more easily tired. I finished my last chemotherapy on September 5th and chose to ring the bell at the end of that chapter.