Chemo starting in December 2010

Had chemo on Wednesday and wbc was normal again. Yay! Kinda rough over the weekend. I was going to take my granddaughter Aubrey but my stomach was to upset to deal with a 6 month old too. Just enjoy my time with her. She is my cure.

LisaMomOfFour: When I had Taxol my nails hurt and became darken. Then they started to crack in the middle across the fingernail. I superglued them when they started cracking.  What happened was the new nail started to grow underneath it. I was afriad of it breaking off at the middle of my fingernail that is why I superglued it. I wish you the best in it cause it is painful. Maybe yours will just stay discolored until the new growth comes through. I hope you do not loose them. Wish you the best!

My granddaughter Aubrey

going in for 2nd weekly taxol tomorrow! i keep thinking, "after tomorrow, i will be 1/4 the way done with taxol!" it seems easier to think about it that way!

JoAnn -- I never congratulated you for finishing chemo !  Yeah...  a big milestone.  I am jealous, I won't be finished until early April, so I have quite a ways to go.....

Of course you can hang out here....

msjag, i found something that works for the sleep. it's my own little cocktail. i take 1 mg of ativan a couple hours before bed... that gets me relaxed... then i take another 1mg or ativan and a 3 mg of melatonin with theanine in it before bed... works like a charm! the theanine in the melatonin is supposed to help "turn off the noise' (what i call it) in your head so you can sleep.

hope this helps!

nolaa, i had my second taxol today too. i can sympathize with the nasty taste when they are flushing with the saline and heparin. i found sour/tart candies help too.

ick, it is nasty though. bleh!

Hi All,

I'm 3 days out from my second weekly Taxol treatment.  The side effects are so much less than the first round of Chemo that I feel like I've gotten a fair measure of quality of life back.   Previously, I had to take Ativan round the clock for 10 days after treatment or I would hit the brick wall of nausea. Ativan took the glimmer out of my eyes, and it's good to have that back.  I still have nausea but it isn't omnipresent.  It just visits on occasion and so I take an Ativan on a bout by bout basis. 

I had neck pains and a headache last evening that lasted into this morning.  Not my usual migraine and it didn't respond to any medication.  

No fingernail pain this week.  I'm happy about that. Last week it was like someone slammed the piano cover down on all my fingers!

I've gone to work for a couple of days this week.  Just 3 or 4 hours per day.  I've learned to leave before I get really tired so I don't spend the rest of the day recovering.  Tiredness also brings on nausea for me.   

Wishing everyone smooth sailing this week and on. 

Wow Shel, sorry you are going through this.  Are you taking L-glutamine powder?  your hand SE's are the same as what I am to expect from being on xeloda. For xeloda, it is lathering on a good 'udderly smooth' or similar cow udder type cream several times a day on hands and feet.  I take B6 and the glutamine (in a little juice, otherwise it all sinks to bottom).  Take 15-30 grams.  I would consider the steroids again too.  they can low dose you.  When I was on taxol, I took them for 3 days after treatment, but you can take them for just one or 2 days.  I was also taking 2 pills (don't remember the mg), so when SE from steroids started to get to me, I just took one.  Is the hand peeling from the taxol?  Again, it can happen like that with xeloda, but I didn't know it would do that for taxol.

I just came home a couple of hours ago from my final A/C.  I know I'm probably close to the last one to cross that milestone, but I'm finally there!

Hoping that Taxol doesn't present with too many new SE surprises for me, I guess I'll find out in two weeks. 

Good evening December gals...I have not posted for a while but read every day religiously and am so glad for the info and the reassurance that what is happening is "normal".  Had my 2nd Taxol today and feel good tonight (probably the steroids kicking in)  The first round made me more and more tired each day but it could be since they pulled me of steroids after treatments.  I am also a bit more anemic than last week.  My onc said she;s not worried enoungh to order a transfusion yet but retains the right to change her mind.  Was pretty sick yesterday and day before and think I got behind on my meds thinking I would not need them since the nausea is supposed to be less of an issue so didnt take anything until around late aftrenoon when i felt horrible.  Good news is that I worked everyday this time full time except today day of treatment when I worked a half day.  It feel so good to be caught up and contributing to my team at work again.

I keep reading about the dry hands (which mine are starting to dry out) any soloutions other than finding a good lotion?

Good luck to all...my thoughts are with all of you everyday and I speak of you often to my medical staff who thinks this is an awesome avenue.

Leigh

YEAH LISAMOMOF FOUR!!! Yeah for being done with AC.  I wish we had a wellness house close by.  I could really use it.  I will start looking for a gym after rads.

I don't know if this will help, but when I had T/C, one onc told me to use tea tree oil if nails were a problem with the taxotere, I put clear nail polish on toe/finger nails and every infustion I brought a zip lock of ice for my finger nails and toe nails.   Onc nurses also said don't scratch itches just rub and use lotion as much as possible.

THird T/C was the worse for me, and I finally figured out one week after the chemo, the tears flow like a river and I can't stop them for a couple of days. gotta be the chemo, wbc being down the first week.  

I hope I will be with some of you on the radiation thread, I will still stay here too and I will start rads end of Feb, begining of march. can't imagine not staying in touch with all of you.

Just saw the article on this page about parp not working for triple neg like they thought...great..just great...some news I prefer not to have.

Happy Valentines day weekend to all, hope you are able to do something special.

JoAnn

Re: Tea tree oil for nails.

I asked my onc re: tea tree oil and the reply was yes, please do, as it helps.  I had crazy itchy hands for the first time today when my husband and I were out for coffee, and it was unbearable.  This itch is a drive yourself crazy in record time kind of itch.  I took an antihistamine and used some cortate cream but it's coming back again.  First crazy SE that I could do without.

the steroids from the taxol make me eat like crazy for 2 days too!!!

karebear76, i will give you a little rundown on how i have been handling the steroid rollercoaster:

tues: taxol, then i eat everything in sight, feel ok, actually sleep ok

wed: still on the eating train, still feeling ok, sleeping ok (ativan ativan ATIVAN!)

thurs: the feeding frenzy stops, by thurs night, i can feel myself start "coming down' from the steroids

fri: totally completely useless, can barely do anything, just no energy whatsoever

sat: start feeling a little better, but an emotional wreck

sun-mon: feeling better, not sleeping, still kinda emotional, but the eating thing is back to normal

TUES:START ALL OVER AGAIN!!

 all in all, though, i like taxol better, i am on 8 weekly. my onc divided my "dose dense" schedule into weekly doses. I have had no nausea, thank god, and i haven't had to take any meds beside the painkiller once in a while (i have ovarian suppression shots, they give me killer headaches). my nail beds have started turning black, so i keep polish on them constantly, which is kinda fun, change it up weekly.

i think i am getting a damn yeast infection, down below, though, gotta talk to doc about that. i think it's cause i have been trying to keep up my normal sex life (uh, not really working the way i  planned!), and i have been having a beer or two the nights i feel well.

that's the other good thing, when i feel well, beer actually tastes good! and i never liked it before, and it relaxes me a little which is nice. i feel more "normal-ish" on taxol, like i can go out and socialize more.

i have started having tinglies in my hands and feet, but they go away as quick as they come on, for now, i still have 6 more treatments to go, so we will see!!!

hope this helps, remember, everyone is different and everyone reacts differently!!

(((HUGS))) HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!-ANGEL

Hdangel- your post makes me feel so normal today! You pretty much described how I am feeling on the taxotere. It is so strange how 3-4 days out you can feel so exhausted!

The last few days I have felt very anxious. My port feels itchy and achy-will this last long? Some of the anxiety stems from people wondering when I will go back to work. I am off until I am through with chemo.  I am unsure how it will work if I have daily radiation for 6 wks.

Otherwise things are good. I hope everyone else is doing well!

Exhaustion seems to be ever-present for me now too.  With AC I'd have one bad week (completely incapacitated) and then one week where I actually felt mostly normal.  But now I go to be at 8 or 9, sleep until 7, up for a few hours, nap for a few hours, up for a few hours, nap for a few hours, do dinner and get kids in bed, then off to to bed for me.  It's so hard to get anything accomplished since I always feel like taking a nap.  On days I don't nap my eye just twitches with that annoying exhaustion twitch.   

I had my 3rd of 12 taxol treatments today.  My counts were low but just high enough to get the chemo.  The nurse also said I was starting to get anemic. I asked her if that meant I should get some iron supplements and she said that wouldn't really help much - the problem is our bodies just aren't producing the red blood cells.  (be careful -- too much iron can make you constipated).  I don't think I can fathom another 2.5 months of being this tired all of the time.  Anyone have any solutions? 

 Maybe I'll start taking sub-lingual B-12 tomorrow and see how that works.  In mega doses B-12 is supposed to give you tons of energy.  I just remembered that.  I'll do an experiment with it for a few days and let you all know what happens.