Worried- wife to start chemo 1/11/18

Hmm.....

Taxotere can cause gastrointestinal distress -- I had its gentler cousin, Taxol, and it gave me diarrhea. I treated it with imodium. Taxotere can cause permanent hair loss, but it's pretty rare.

Doxorubicin (Adriamycin) can affect the heart. Your wife should have a baseline heart scan (e.g. MUGA) to check her ejection fraction, and she should be checked every few months or so to make sure that her heart is doing OK.

My oncologist refused to do AC (Adriamycin + Cytoxan) without a port because this combo can damage your veins. So, your wife's oncologist may recommend that she get a port inserted.

Hope this helps!

Here's a link to a good website from the Cleveland Clinic about different chemo treatments: Taxotere

Like many others I had its cousin, Taxol, so can't really speak to Taxotere's SE. From what I've read on these board neuropathy can be a problem.

I'll also add that I had Cytoxan and Doxorubicin without a port so it might not be necessary for your wife. My hospital prefers not to use them unless absolutely necessary.

Dear HH;

Your wife is lucky to have a caring husband....I just wanted to encourage her to join in on a thread of women undergoing chemo in January:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/69/topics...

Lots of support and help to be had from women undergoing the same experiences...

My thoughts about chemo: it wasn't fun, but it was bearable and doable. I didn't have much nausea (honestly, the meds these days are pretty darn good!) and I worked all through it, just taking off a few days when I was at my worst each cycle. I even took two business trips during chemo! For me, losing my hair was the worst part, and it did seem to take FOREVER to come back, but come back it has, and it looks good now. As I think others have mentioned, food did start to taste cruddy: there were some days when the only thing I wanted to eat was mashed potatoes and gravy, because the texture was nice and it didn't taste awful...oh, and ice cream. ice cream never tasted bad.

Best of luck to you both. Hugs.

Octogirl

hi Hopeful, I did both Taxotere and Cytoxan for my chemotherapy. I had 4 sessions 3 weeks apart. Hair loss is pretty much a given but the risk of permanent hair loss is very low. I think I read it was between 1 and 2 percent. Scary stuff for sure, but the odds are with her. Some people mentioned cold capping. I decided to just to with losing my hair and not trying to save partial hair. I lost my hair around day 17 and then had some growth pretty immediately of random hairs all over my head. Now that I am post-chemo my hair is starting to grow back in all over.

As for the "stuff" you need, I looked at that recommended list at the top of this Chemo forum list (there's a Shopping List post) and pretty much bought everything I read. Biotene, immodium, pepcid, senekot, wet wipes, tylenol, omg you name it and I got it. I ended up using pepcid twice after my third chemo. The rest remain untouched and unopened in a (also-new) bag I bought to take with me to chemo. Honestly I would probably just wait if I had to do it all over again. You can always go out that day to get anything you really need and don't have at home already. It will all depend on how your wife reacts to the chemo, and everyone on this board has had different side-effects hti them. Probably the only thing I would absolutely recommend you get is pepcid, because that and any anti-nausea medication you get from the Oncologist will help keep nausea at bay.

Best of luck to your wife!