Hi
I’m waiting for my post op results but at biopsy stage 2 lymph glands were cancerous, so I’m thinking I may need chemo.
The fear of chemo is really upsetting me and I have an anxiety disorder. Please can anyone reassure me that it won’t be 5 months of being really poorly x
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Hello!
I had chemotherapy after a positive node was found during sentinel node biopsy - it was quite a shock as I hadn’t been expecting chemo at all. I was terrified too, but in all honesty it is not as bad as you imagine. We think of chemo as leaving us hunched over a toilet bowl or rendering us ill in bed for days, but in my experience the reality is very different. Anti-sickness drugs are really on point nowadays and I didn’t feel anything but the mildest nausea for a few of the days. Obviously some people have worse symptoms than others but most of the people in our monthly chemo group managed without sickness.
In my experience, chemo isn’t a walk in the park, but it is doable. I had dose dense EC followed by paclitaxel - EC affected me the worst. When I was having a bad day I guess it felt like I had a bad case of flu without the nasal congestion - just generally drained and run down with aches and pains. But it didn’t last forever and by the second week after treatment I generally felt more or less normal. With the paclitaxel I had barely any symptoms at all aside from some bone pain which lasted a few days.
Wishing you the best of luck 
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I did okay with it. It wasn’t a fun time or anything but I was able to continue my part time job uninterrupted and never even felt nauseous. The fatigue hit but not until after the third session and by then I could look forward to the fourth when I was done. They have terrific drugs to mitigate side effects now so most of us may not thrive with it but we get through it fine and make a full recovery.
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I have a feeling that chemo is often used as a plot device in movies or books and people have a strange idea of what it is. It is not a walk in a park, but it’s not completely miserable either. It’s just a treatment. Everybody reacts differently to this treatment which makes it difficult to plan for it. However, after a few cycles (I had 8) you get into the habit of it and it is pretty manageable, if you don’t have any major side effects (and most people don’t). You won’t be lying in bed the whole time. You won’t be next the to loo the whole time. However, you may have days when you feel weak, you may have days when you feel nauseous, you may have days when your body is so weak that a minor infection gets you sick for weeks. There is no pain. It’s quite likely that you’ll be feeling more or less ok most days, save for fatigue and your heart racing when you go up the stairs.
You can go in with the feeling that you’ll be fine. Your body is strong and it has digested some very poor food and drink choices on your part before and it will get chemo out of your system too. If you have access to therapy, it would be great, but otherwise, don’t worry too much. You’ll get through it and your body will help you with it.
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