Hi Pontentilla
Congratulations. That has cheered me up.
I was only diagnosed 4 weeks ago and so far I’ve been feeling pretty rotten. I was due to start my second round of Xeloda yesterday but my blood counts were too low so I needed a blood transfusion today and will have to wait a week to restart chemo.
Do you remember having similar problems at the start of your treatment? I’ve been feeling rather depressed today, convinced I’m going to be one of the unlucky ones.
Thanks
Lola x
I was very interested to read this thread - especially about the anorexia. I was only on xeloda briefly for 2.5 cycles before my onc took me off it. In that time I lost a stone in weight - and I am not that big any way - I think at that time I was about 8.5 stone so could ill afford to lose it.
Dawn
I didn’t really have ‘cycles’ with Xeloda, I was on it constantly with no break (and 3 week cycles of 2 other drugs at the same time). Think this may have been because at the time they thought I had primary gastric cancer rather than secondary breast cancer in the stomach, and gastric is generally much more aggressive. I was overweight when I started so losing weight didn’t matter so much - but it’s always better not to. I don’t think I had any interruption because of low blood counts, but it’s hard to remember.
Lola, if I were you I would start keeping a count of calories - write it down and aim for 2000 a day. If you find 2000 really hard, demand Scandishake. If you’re anything like I was, you now have to start eating all the things you felt guiltly about before - cream and so on. This is the sort of advice that the nutritionist will give you once the onc has noticed you’re losing weight - but you may as well start now.
I lived on Fortijuice during the 4 months of FEC chemo as I had severe faecal incontinence due to stopping my Crohn’s chemo. The hospital prescribed it foc and even had it delivered to my home. I lost 28 lbs and friends in the US started sending me size 6 and 8 clothes! I drank 3 cartons a day (9 different flavours all yucky) plus copious amounts of ginger ale and ginger beer to quell the nausea. The 900 cals per day was enough to keep me alive, and I am now back to my normal weight of 8 st. I tried Ensure, but it made me feel more nauseous.
Liz.