I completed my last TAC July 10th and can honestly say that it was not half as bad as I thought it would be. I still went to concerts in London, a theme park, meals and for my sins I went clubbing until 3a.m 2 weeks after the last poisoning!
My cancer was grade 1, with one lymph gland having just a few cells lurking, but they whipped them all out just to be on the safe side. I had TAC as my Mum had BC at 41, I was DX at 39.
Radio starts next Tuesday (20 zaps) and so far no side effects from Tamoxifen. I will start Zoladex next week.
I wasn’t sick on TAC (same night of chemo I had a chinese takeaway EVERY time), had no mouth ulcers, the worse bit for me was the achey bones the bone marrow boosting injections I gave myself caused in my long bones. That lasted a day, so I stayed in bed, then had a bath, gentle massage, hot water bottle,then back in the bath!
Little things like constipation and having zero taste is a pain, but with practise you can sort the constipation out very easily. Sadly the taste problem is just part and parcel I think of any treatment.
Steroids were fine, I had 8 a day to take for 3 days, the only thing that peed me off with them is that they made my face round, so much so, I looked like Moon.pig.com - ha ha. They also gave me red, rosey cheeks that my hubby nicknamed ‘Rosie & Jim’. They did get quite warm, but nothing to moan about really.
Having been through chemo and if I had the choice you are faced with, I would have TAC. No chemo is ‘nice’, so you may as well go for the meatier of the two. Fingers x you will only ever have to do this once in your lifetime, so may as well go for the best,even if it has just a tinier success rate. Why have a second class stamp when you can have a first?
Good luck with your choice, and feel free to PM me if you want to.
Daisy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx