Side effects from chemo cycle 1

I have just checked the calendar to see how many weeks it has been since chemo and its......2, it feels like at least 5!?! 15 days is that really it! Looks like this may be a long few months! Roll on summer I say!

Saying that 15 days after chemo and all my side effect symptoms have now gone. so that's good. I get a normal few days before we start again. I only hope the next cycle goes as smoothly as this one.

I was expecting to be chucking up for a good week, lying in bed with Rick mopping my brow while feeling desperately sorry for myself. I did the lying in bed thing, but bar one or two painful moments it was very bearable.

I in fact got no nausea which was nice as I'm not sick often and I'm sure that's because my body knows I don't really like it! I took my anti sickness medication 'just incase' for the first 6 days then forgot after that and by the time I remembered I figured I didn't need it!

I have definitely felt tired, so much so I have even enjoyed a few siestas which I haven't done since before I had Madeline when I could quite easily nod off on the couch in an afternoon. Enforced naps aren't always as nice as naps when you feel 100% well but some days it was just nice to pass some time. The days have seemed very long when they don't seem to have much purpose. A couple of months ago I could only dream of having this much time on my hands but now I have I have lost all inclination to do all the jobs I had lined up. They are all still waiting!

On day 10 I thought I was in full blown labour! My stomach had swelled up and was really tense even putting my hand gently on it was really painful. Later that day I started getting really bad 'contractions' which had me doubled over in pain they got worse and worse over night and the pain made me vomit and sweat.

By the morning I decided to call the gp out ( as typically it was a Saturday). I was really hoping that they weren't going to say I just needed a big trump and it would be sorted! The GP came and she was really lovely, she said I had a bad case of bowel colic and made me feel better by saying they only thing on a par in regards to pain was labour, gall stones and renal colic. So I went from being miserable in pain and feeling very mard to being equally in pain but smug and slightly proud that I was actually a big brave girl. She prescribed buscopan ( an anti spasmodic ) which she promised would help within 12 hours and did. The contractions went away but for about 5 days I was left with a tender raw feeling abdomen. Day 15 this has just passed and I'm enjoying feeling normal again! Feels like it went on for ages!

All the fast growing cells in my body, the cancer cells but also some of my normal cells are killed off.'The place this normally affects is from your mouth all the way down, through and 'out'. This makes everything In between very raw. I had a sore mouth with a few ulcers and funny scar like lines.

This coincided with my neutropenia ( where my white blood cell count was knocked down very low, specifically my neutrophils ). I guess this was a side effect too and during these 4 days or so I was extra tired but it was painless enough. I just had to avoid any infections in this time as my body couldn't fight them and I'd be hospitalised :(

My only other side effect is that my scar on my chest I had ( from my biopsy back in December ) isn't healing. It was looking so good but since chemo it's all broken down and I've pulled random big bits of thick internal stitches out of the holes! I thought it was just a hair so grabbed and pulled and this thick acrylic/ wire like thing came out! Then about 6 hours later another one worked its way out of the hole. The day after the other end broke down and a bit of stitch came out that end too! luckily I stopped unravelling and my holes closed up. When I checked with the Dr at the hospital he told me off for tugging my internal stitches out and picking my scabs ( I couldn't help it! I had waited a whole month! ). He also said that unfortunately while I'm on chemo my scar won't heal and may get worse and worse. The added problem that I have is that area is then going to receive at least 3 weeks of radiation ( frying ) which will make it even worse or in the doctors words: you will be left with a big bit of 'funny skin'. I can choose at the end to have it all cut out and start again and hopefully the next scar will heal nicely?

Don't suppose I should be moaning about a scar, it's just a shame it is slap bang in the middle of my chest ( to left of my sternum over top of heart ) so 80% of my tops and 100% of my dresses are out and I will need to invest in some granny turtle necks! Another quick moan tho! It wasn't even from surgery to remove the blasted thing it was only a biopsy but they needed to open my up spread my ribs dig in my chest so scar is quite sizeable :(

Ok moan over! Roll on the next cycle if its as 'easy' as that!