Hi Monica
glad you’re feeling better. Good luck with your wig - I got mine last week and it looks a whole lot better than my real hair! There is a lot of fun with wigs to be had out there - I could look a lot more glamorous, so long as don’t lose all my eyebrows and put on two stone as might happen.
I am due to have my Hickmann line in today followed by my first chemo tomorrow but I have a stinking cold and probably a sinus infection. Blo*dy typical! I’ve been sent off to the GP to see if I am fit for treatment or if I have to delay it again! I wish I could just get it over and done with.
Hi everyone, hope you are all feeling OK, especially those who are having treatment this week
Helen,hope you get the all clear from your GP so you can start to get on with it all. Thanks for lovely email! One week post chemo I have found that I had 5 crap days (the 5th being the worst) and then started to feel better. Today I have felt great, but my period started yesterday and I always feel good the day after it starts. Funny to think this might be the last one - I am 50 and they have been getting increasingly irregular, between 18 day and 42 day cycles, so am ‘ripe’ to fall into menopause I guess. I need to lose the periods or I will have to have an oophorectomy, and I am already like a patchwork quilt - had 2 hernias after tram flap!
Went and got wig today and, like you said you had, got one that is much better than anything I could grow on my own. I went with my Nina and we had such a special day. I had decided to take control and pre-empt the hair loss by asking a hairdresser to take the clippers to my real hair. So, we bought the wig (longer than I’ve had for years) then went 2 doors down to a hairdresser and explained what we were after to the girl who looked after us, and she told us that she had already done the same thing this morning for her aunt, who has bc. She was fabulous and we had fun with her, she didn’t even want to accept payment and tried to turn it down.
we spent the day buying hair clips, scarves, new perfume and other goodies before I dropped her off at her friends house, then I went home and blew my husband and son away with my wig and then the new crop. I can honestly say its been one of the nicest days I can remember, and I thought losing my hair would be the hardest thing imaginable.
I hope you all have as positive an experience as poss - I’m sure I’ll have days when I’m down about it, but I’m thankful about today, anyway. Changed my pic so you can see the monni-crop!
love to you all
monica xx
D-Day for me today. The GP prescribed antibiotics and the chemo nurses said I should go ahead anyway, so I’m starting chemo feeling crap - it can only get worse from here! I had my Hickmann line put in yesterday - a truly horrible experience and it hurts like hell in my neck so I didn’t sleep very well - couldn’t get comfortable. Hopefully that will improve but I don’t relish 4 hours with that cold cap on my head with a neck I can’t move properly today. A friend has said I should just get hooked straight up to a bottle of sauvignon blanc - I might ask the nurse to flush it out with alcohol every week instead of saline - might help those side effects!
Well done with the hair crop - had it started falling out anyway? I’m not sure what I will do when I get to that stage, I’m far more worried about the Hickman line and feeling sick rather than losing my hair although it will be a shock when it goes.
My OH tried on my wig for a laugh - as he’s practically bald and has been for most of his life (certainly since I’ve known him) it was a bit of a shock - he looked just like his son! I think we should get matching hisnhers wigs and go out on the town to see who notices.
As for periods, it’s amazing how we get attached to them, isn’t it? After 30+ years of inconvenience (I’m 43) and for no value as I don’t have children, when someone says they might be on the way out it’s like the end of the world as I’ve known it for all my adult life. the idea of an early menopause is not my idea of fun, but maybe get it over and done with I suppose.
Hello
Helen, have everything crossed for you today - hope it goes well and the next days aren’t awful. Lets know how you are doing, I’ll be thinking of you.
Hair hadn’t started falling out but I was so worried about it coming out in clumps that it felt like a better idea to sort it all out while I was in the right frame of mind.
take care everyone
love, monica xx
HI Rach - good to hear from you again - maybe we can meet up next week when I’m feeling a bit more normal again. Yes, it’s bad timing on the sinusitus, but it is improving now I am antibiotics.
I am, however, feeling pretty sick and nauseous - haven’t thrown up yet and hope it stays controlled. Bit like seasickness or car sickness only I can’t stop and get out! Don’t feel like eating although I am doing as it makes me feel less sick for while.
I’ll know next time not to bother washing my hair on the day of chemo as the first thing they did was to slap loads of conditioner on it to stop the cap sticking - I had icicles on my hair when they took it off! It was a lot easier than I expected having the drugs injected into the hated Hickmann line - it has its benefits - no more needles and is quicker.
Anyway off to take my next anti-sickness tablet. I hope I get some sleep tonight, my neck is more comfortable so that might help.
New to site so bear with me! Had first FEC last week 25 Aug. The first week I wanted to die with the nausea, I will have to get other anti sickness pills if I can. This week I was not too bad just tired mainly and did the shopping for wig and getting my news silicone boobs! (Had bilateral) This forum will be great for getting help on things that crop up and giving everyone support as they go along. My sense of taste has gone and have been drinking strawberry milkshakes and eating sherbert lemons so that I can get rid of the metallic taste. Hope everyone feels well today.
Sandra
hello Sandra, and welcome!
hope you keep feeling better and better. I think I am quite lucky so far in my response to chemo. The weirdest thing for me is that I DON’T sleep - I have been wide awake at 5 in the morning 3 times this week, not having gone to sleep! I’m not upset or anything just wide awake, and also a bit hyper during the day. I am trying a bit of treadmill every morning and no caffeine at all and it isn’t making a difference. If it continues I’ll have to check out what it is…
Its not a problem I anticipated having with chemo
take care everyone
Monica xxx
had my first E of E-CMF regime on thursday, apart from an allergic reaction, the SE are not too bad (yet?)the worst thing is the smell that’s in my nose! Any one else had this? Does it go?
hello, I don’t have a smell in my nose as such, but I can’t bear the smell of certain things that I have been fine with before - like the posh face cream my friend bought me!
Daisyleaf, are you also on steroids with your chemo…? If so, that’s probably what’s causing the insomnia. Try taking them not after 3pm in the afternoon and that might help?! Caro x
thanks Caro
stopped taking them a over week ago - its such a pain in the butt - I am wide awake after less than 3 hours sleep last night (well, this morning from 7-ish til 9.30!)
Hi All
isn’t it weird how we all have different side effects? My worst day so far was the day I had the chemo - I felt so sick the evening after - it hasn’t been as bad since, although mornings are a bit dodgy. I have to have a drink and banana in bed before I take the antisickness and steroids and before I can work out how I feel. The steroids just make me fee shaky; this is the last day of them so I don’t know how I will feel tomorrow.
I’m sleeping better than ever! I do wake up in the night but get back to sleep again and have had a good 8 hours for the past couple of days. Could be something to do with having kicked the OH out into the spare room! Nothing else so far, no funny tastes or smells. I’m a bit off food which is opposite to what I expected - I thought the steroids were supposed to promote the appetite. I can only eat half my normal portion at meals and snack lightly in between. As I was dreading putting on loads of weight this can only be good.
It’s the dreaded Hickmann line which is really causing my bother. Now the bruising is going I am can feel the tubes under my skin and it is freaking me out - if this continues for 5 months I will be suicidal by the end of it! The tubes prevent me moving my neck fully sideways or up and down which is a problem for driving and I can feel them constantly which is just awful. This so far is worse than the chemo SEs! And I would love a bath which I can’t have till 2010 due to the tubes!
Anyway, whinge over, hope you’re all doing well and coping with all those variety of SEs. We can only look forward to the end of it all.
Hi there
helen, don’t like the sound of that hickman line, or no baths either. I normally like nothing better than a soak in the tub with wine, books, a facial…glorious!
like you say, roll on the end of the year and this bloomin’ rigmarole! Seriously, I know I am pretty lucky compared to some others, long may it continue!
love to everyone
monica xx
Hi!
Having my first FEC tomorrow (got 6 to do) and not entirely sure how to feel about it or prepare for it. Reading all your posts has been such an amazing help!! SO thanks!! I have stocked my cupboards with sherbert lemons, ginger biscuits, and milkshake!
Any advice on what to think about it and how to actually go through with it and sleep tonight would be most welcome!
Hope you are all ok.
Thanks xxx
P.S When are you ment to see the hospital wig lady? Just fretting about the hair stuff. You all look so good!
Hi Trumpet
have responded to you on the thread you started a bit earlier today
hope it goes well tomorrow. will be thinking of you and will check later on this pm to see how its going
xxx
Thanks for your responses! I hope you have a sherbert lemon for me tomorrow! It is so nice to know that people have actually done the thing you are dreading and are so fab!
Think i am going to have a bath and read a bit and put some stuff on my ipod to listen to tomorrow whilst the nastiness is happening.
hi there
just want to wish you luck for starting the dreaded fec. Im a fec veteran. I had mine aug sept and oct last year and then had 3 taxotere which personally i found much much worse. Lost my hair 2weeks after first doseof chemo but has now grown back. Had a few trims but finally long enough to have my highlights done on thurs so will look like me again when i see myself in the mirror!!! Yes chemo is the pits of the earth but you will get through it and i can hardly believe a year has passed since mine started. You w illhave good days and bad but keepyour chin up. With the support of some of the remarkable ladies on here you will get by.
Good luck Trumpet, hope it goes well. My tips are to have bananas by the side of the bed for the morning sickness - you can eat before you get up which helps. Drink loads - force yourself to, I had to and struggled. Ginger beer is good but I found it too fizzy - the best is elderflower cordial with a posh slightly sparkling water.
Also get out every day for some fresh air and a bit of a walk, I’ve done this every day so far and it really does make me feel better. As someone who has worked full time all my life and is now unemployed (made redundant as I was diagnosed and now unemployable) I struggle to know what to do with myself all day - I’ve done the housework, read my book for an hour… now what?
The chemo ward has a portable dvd player and films which they gave me for the length of my chemo which helped pass the time as I found it difficult to concentrate on reading. I had a tearful moment just before it all started and they were very good with me. I hope your nurses are equally good and helpful.
I’m suffering today from Thrush (due to antibiotics I think), constipation and indigestion but not particularly sickness so hopefully things are improving with time.
My chemo nurse gave me a form to take to the local wigshop who also visit the hospital on a regular basis. I had an hours appointment in private where she fitted me with various wigs to try on. It was great fun, I tried a real Farrah Fawcett number which looked weird - just not me but found two wigs which looked much better than my real hair - my hairstyle I’ve always been trying to achieve and failing. I got one free on the NHS and the other one I may buy if I decide I need it. Take someone with you and have a laugh. I haven’t started losing my hair yet - early days I spose.
Anyway, time to go for a walk. All the best, thinking of you and hope it all goes well.
