The Merits of the Case

Thursday marks my fifth chemo treatment and the beginning of Taxol. I am dreading it even more than usual because of the element of the unknown. Some people have told me it’s easier, but some people have warned me that it’s not that much easier. I’ve also heard that the side-effects last longer than the AC side-effects. And some people have an allergic reaction to Taxol which the nurses will try to prevent with Bendryl but which is still scary. Like everything else with cancer treatments, it is different for everyone and I have to just wait and see how my body reacts to it. At least the AC had become a familiar hell.

I have been told to allow 5-6 hours for the Taxol administration, and I have to admit that I am not looking forward to spending that much time in the oncologist’s green treatment room, no matter how many cool people I meet. I’m planning to take homework and other (fun) reading with me, but I am wondering if I should also run to the library for a movie to take with me to watch on my computer. Of course it won’t matter how much I have to do if I fall asleep because of the Benadryl, which is what happens to many people.

I thought I would take a moment to note some of the side-effects of the AC that I haven’t mentioned or that I have mentioned only in passing as a record for myself and just in case the list possibly helps someone else going through this.

Hair loss: I’ve documented this pretty well here…at least the emotional aspects of it. I haven’t mentioned that my hair eventually stopped growing a couple of weeks ago and that it continues to fall out. I still have some super-short hair on my head, but I also have lots of completely bare spots on my scalp. My eyebrows and eyelashes began to thin a couple of weeks ago and in the past few days I have lost almost all of my eyelashes. I thought the loss of the eyebrows and eyelashes would be at least as traumatic as the loss of my hair, but it really hasn’t been yet. Maybe because it’s easy to fake eyebrows and “eyelashes” with makeup.

I’ve been told that some women continue to lose any remaining hair during Taxol and that some women’s hair begins to grow back before they finish with the Taxol. Again, we’ll see how I react.

The hair on my legs is still growing, but only very randomly spaced pieces and only at the rate of about 1/32” per week. And one thing that no one ever mentions—but that everyone seems to be curious about--is pubic hair. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve lost almost all of that, as well. One of the women I met at the oncologist’s office during my second treatment told me that I would also lose my nose hair and develop a chronically runny nose. She was dead on with that prediction, so I make sure I carry Kleenex in every bag I carry, right next to my Chlorox wipes and hand sanitizer.

Nausea: The nausea has had an interesting side-effect of its own. It has completely turned me off of some of the foods that I ate while I felt sick after my treatments. One of my books warned that this might happen and that you should be careful about eating your favorite foods right after treatment. I was careful not to eat my favorites, but I did eat some things while not feeling well that I kind of wish I hadn’t, because now I’m finding it difficult to eat them.

The nausea has also affected my ability to walk into the oncologist’s office. I’m usually okay in the waiting room, but as soon as I go into the treatment room and see those green vinyl chairs I find that I start feeling just a bit nauseous. In fact, if I so much as envision the room in my imagination it makes me feel a little queasy.

Fingernails: A recent development that has been bugging me is tender fingernails. It’s not actually my fingernails that hurt, but my fingers under my nails. It feels like they are bruised. I have only found one mention anywhere of anyone else who has experienced this kind of side-effect while on AC, but I have to assume that it’s somehow related to my treatments since it’s a new thing. My nails were pretty long and surprisingly strong throughout treatment, but I cut them all off the other day because it hurt to type with the nails hitting the computer keys. I don’t have the same problem with my toenails.

Eyes: Right after my treatments my eyes have been very dry. After a few days, however, they start watering and they seem to water all the time. I have also noticed that my vision is frequently blurry. It doesn’t really seem like my true vision is any worse than it normally is, it just seems like there is something in my eyes that is making it hard for me to see.

Exercise: All the “what to expect when you have cancer” books always say that people who exercise during their treatments have an easier time dealing with them than people who don’t. After reading that, I planned to continue to do whatever I could throughout my treatment to make sure that I made it easier on myself. However, I have found that exercise during chemo is much easier said than done…at least for me. It has been so hard for me just to keep up with any of my daily routines, and exercise has completely fallen by the wayside. Maybe I’ll feel more up to doing something physical with the Taxol, but for now I have checked exercise off of my to-do list.

Mouth Sores: You might recall that I tried cryotherapy during my last AC treatment to prevent mouth sores and it seems to have worked. I didn’t develop any of the mouth sores that I seem to have had after the second and third treatments. Whether that’s because of the ice or because I just didn’t get any, I will never (gladly) know. I did bite the inside of my mouth while chewing last week and it took several days for it to heal, but that’s not really the same as developing mouth sores.

There are many more, of course, most of which I’ve documented here as they occurred. If I think of any others that I haven’t mentioned, I’ll add them later.