Having Serious Questions About my Chemo after 1st Treatment

I have had taxol (the T part of your protocol) and it has worked for me.  Right now I am NED.  I can't imagine anything else working better or faster (within 2 cycles).  I would hope that you would have the same result.

Yes, side effects do tend to accumulate over time.  Fatigue, for example.  However, I had strange shooting pains in my legs for the first couple of weeks and those disappeared.  I've had mild side effects IMO, and they have been fully worth it because of the benefit.  I would probably be dead already without taxol (Abraxane). 

Its true that you're poisoning your body with chemo. But the poison is attacking certain types of cells that replicate in certain ways. When it attacks the tumor cells, it also tends to wreak havoc on stomach and GI stuff. Bye-bye tumor cells, and luckily the other healthy cells that are attacked can come back. It's not pretty, but it's a way to kill the cancer cells without completely killing other good stuff.

I did a taxotere/cytoxan regimen in the spring, which shrunk my tumor greatly before my UMX. I'm now doing a follow-up adriamycin regimen, for good measure. As Alexgram mentions, fatigue tends to cumulate. I also developed shortness of breath and a pretty rapid pulse by the end of the spring rounds. It took a few weeks to recover from that, but I've been coming back stronger ever since.

Adriamycin is very tough or so I've heard.  You could always ask your onc to put you on something else besides Ad...

One thing that really helped me with chemo is that I drank 2 liters of water a day and sometimes 3.  My onc had me taking my nausea meds proactively--he did not want to 'treat' nausea.  Once nausea gets a hold, its harder to counteract.

Good luck, lagarto.  I was terrified of chemo and it wasn't that bad.

Liz

The red devil is bad, I did 6 rounds of TAC and it was rough. I finished 6/16/14...seems like I was never going to get out of it, but I did.

If naseau is an issue for you talk to your MO about the pre-meds they are giving you. I started with Aloxi and that wasn't enough for me. I got Aloxi, Emend, and Ativan.....that did help. My first tx with just the Aloxi kicked my butt with nausea.

I would also suggest drinking water as much as you can. However, I know how hard it can be to stomach anything. One thing I didn't know from the beginning was that if you are feeling dehydrated during your cycles of tx you can go in and have fluids. I did this a few times and it helped.

Look, chemo sucks and I honestly hated it. I'm not gonna sugar coat it at all. BUT, I made it through...didn't think I would sometimes and didn't want to go back, but I'm glad I did now. I am glad I did everything I could to prevent this wicked BC from coming back.

are you suffering from bad se's?  

We are all so different and view 'things' in different ways.

I never once thought that I was 'poisoning' my body, but rather attacking and killing what was trying to take over my body - thus killing me.  To me, LIFE is precious and I will fight in everyway I can for it but that's me.

I didn't see that you had posted anything about your type, stage, surgery, etc.  There are many different TX (treatment) plans that vary greatly.  We enter TX differently - some go in very healthy other that the BC DX - some with pre-existing conditions that can effect theTX plan.  For some, chemo has to be the first TX, for some surgery is first.

For me with my DX, I did 4 DD A/C neoadjuvant (before surgery) with little to no SEs.  Did 12 weekly Taxol adjuvant (after surgery) that completely and utterly EXHAUSTED me.  It is different with some others -AC is nasty and Taxol is easier - we are each unique.

Ask questions but do not assume that you will experience the worst anyone says you will.  M

It is very interesting to me to read your approaches to chemo. My mind was dead set against it and I could never quite convince myself that it would kill all the cancer cells that might come back. It increases my chances but what about the drug resistant cells. Everyone made me feel like I wasn't strong enough to fight the cancer with all the tools available.

I am not sure why I wasn't as afraid of the cancer as I was the chemo. It could be my personal experience with a friend that had her tumor turn on her and exploded in size after her chemo sessions. She was so weak from the treatments she died within six months.

For Kicks she was convinced that the chemo was doing its intended job and I think that is so important to a successful outcome.