So today was my first day taking a new chemotherapy drug. I have started referring to these as cocktails, because you never get just a single drug when you go to the clinic. It’s a mix of stuff.
The drug I’m taking now has historically caused moderate to severe sensitivity reactions in more than 30% of patients – which is a very anxiety-provoking number. To reduce the risk of this, they load you up on some old standbys before you get your main infusion – a double dose of Benadryl (which knocks me out) and the much hated steroid (which wakes me back up.) Throw in some anti-nausea drugs and some Pepcid AC, and you’re ready to have your Taxol.
Another extremely common side effect of this drug is neuropathy. This is when you experience pain, numbness or tingling in your extremities – mostly feet and hands. This side effect scares me, because it can take months to reverse, and is sometimes permanent. So my oncologist said that although there hasn’t been a clinical study in the United States about it yet, there’s been some early research in Japan and Europe that shows that icing your extremities during treatment may reduce neuropathy. In Japan, they did a fairly simple test with colon cancer patients – they had them apply ice to one hand and not the other. And some patients did indeed have less neuropathy in the iced hand.
So it’s not an official part of my treatment, but I brought a bunch of ice packs and iced my hands. I had not expected my treatment to take more than five hours (unpleasant surprise), so towards the end I ran out of ice – and “instant ice” things just aren’t cold enough. Next time, I’ll bring a lunch cooler full of things to ice my hands and do better. I can say with some assurance that sitting around for five hours with your hands on ice is not a good time, and is not recommended for your next party or social function…
Most people report the Taxol side effects show up 2-3 days after treatment, so I’ll be waiting to see what I get. At the moment, I feel better than I did after the last chemo cocktails. I feel into a hard sleep when I got home (Benadryl does that to me) and woke up able to eat a normal dinner. Well, a late normal dinner – I slept through the kids’ dinner, which my mother handled for me.
Tomorrow I go in for my Neulasta. This is the shot I’m allergic to, but which makes it possible for me to go to the office and be around other people – it boosts my immune system. It also comes with a bunch of Benadryl, so it’ll be another sleepy night for me.
And Friday I will go see the radiation oncologist again, so we can start making plans for the next phase of my treatment. Big week for doctor’s appointments.
That’s it for now – I’m happy that I avoided any severe reactions during treatment, as that was the big risk today, and I don’t feel too dreadful. I never blogged about it, but my last AC treatment actually knocked me down hard – I ended up taking more PTO from work and spent the entire following weekend at home, sick and fatigued. At this moment, I’m still optimistic that won’t happen this time. 🙂
Mostly because I have all your good wishes and unicorn magic.
Kate