Hi Ladies
Any of you ladies out there starting chemo in Nov that would like to share this journey with me.
I’m having 3 x FEC + 3 x Tax and Herceptin followed by 3/4 weeks of Rads and 5 years of Tamoxifen.
Got my pre-assessment on Fri and getting a bit jittery cos I don’t know what to expect 
Best wishes
L4W
Hi L4W
I possibly might be joing you. Not completely sure yet. Have got to go on Friday to get results of axillary clearance but as it has gone to lymph nodes it is looking very likely. I suppose I will then have to wait for an appointment with onc. We have a holiday booked for the middle of November but as I have been left with a terrible seroma after op we might postpone it until next year when treatment has finished. To be honest I just want to get going, the sooner started the sooner finished.
When do you actually start your chemo?
Hiya
I am getting my first chemo session on 28th Oct, I have been nosing around the starting chemo in October thread, but I feel I am in between the this one and that one! I’m not sure what type of chemo I’m getting, but I know I am having 6 sessions. I have a bone scan today and a CT scan on Tomorrow as my bc (inflamatory bc) is agressive/invasive T4 stage and they need to check to see if it has spread. After chemo I am having a full mx then radio therapy. I just want to get on with the treatment especially knowing it can be invasive, the sooner it starts the sooner it will be over with. At the moment it doesn’t seem real but I do seem to have problems with sleeping all night, I guess that will only get worse once the treatment starts.
Wishing everyone luck with their first treatment.
Weme
Hello
Just thought I’d pop in to share my experience and hopefully reassure you.
I started chemo in Jan and finished April. I had 6 FEC (allergy to tax). I can honestly say that, although not the nicest experience Ive ever had and couldn’t wait for it to pass - it wasn’t as terrifyingly dreadful as I was expecting.
I managed weekends away, meals out, seeing friends + most of the run of the mill stuff. I had one day when I was really sick but got some stronger anti-sickness pills straight away, which stopped it. I had my first haircut last week after shaving it off in Feb. I had ops and am now on the last of my rads.
It’s grim, but it’ll pass.
Drink loads before, during and after treatment. Rest when you need to as you can’t rebuild your energy and plan lots of nice things to do on the days you know you’re going to be feeling better (week 3 usually).
Good luck.
i have joined the gang for starting chemo in oct, but i haven’t yet started, i have my appointment with oncologist tomorrow, so i am guessing it will be next week, but it could be beginning of nov
there’s been some really useful bits of posted on the october discussion
if you don’t mind i’d like to keep in touch on this discussion too?
Gill x
Hi
staycalmandcarryon, thank you your post really helped it is the not knowing that I find hardest to cope with. Will I be ill, wont I!! I know I wont know till it happens but it’s nice to know it’'s not all doom and gloom 
Weme, perhaps that’s what we should call ourselves - The Inbetweeners. I’m like weme and actually starting on the 27th Oct, I’ve been following the Oct thread and got lots of useful tips and they seem like a really nice bunch but just felt they were ahead of me.
Sunshine1 & Gill13 feel free to pop in and out we all know this ‘club’ has no exclusivity Just nice to know there’s someone out their to hold my hand and hopefully we can guide each other back to an ordinary life. Oh I can’t wait to be ordinary again (I can’t say normal cos I never was/am/will be) 
Best wishes to us all and may all our SE be little ones.
L4W
i think thats all i want too, a return to ordinary life. no fuss, no drama, just ordinary…
i know you’re meant to re-discover life or make life changing desicions after cancer but at this moment ordinary would do, maybe life changing will come later when we’re bored with ordinary again x
Hi ladies, I having been following the October chemo gang but due to fertility treatment I am not starting my chemo until 2 November (my 34 birthday of all days) so i am an ‘inbetweener’. I’m having 3 x FEC and 3 x TAX followed by herceptin for 12 months. I’m getting my hair cut short this weekend. I’ve not had it short since I was in primary school!
Lizzy
hi lizzy
i’ve just seen your other post that you’ve had a good result from your fertility treatment
Fab news x
Hi one and all
I thought about getting my hair cut but as someone who only gets it done about once a year and puts up with it the rest of the time it is obviously something I don’t keep up as a regular basis and I thought why have it cut when in a few weeks time it will all be gone anyway!
I must try and find out what treatment I’m getting, just spent 4 hours at hospital getting a bone scan, got a CT scan to look forward to tomorrow - what joy!
Ordinary life sounds good to me, was getting used to it after seeing my husband through cancer about 18 months ago (unfortunately he didn’t win the battle and I lost him Jan 2010).
Life just likes to try us sometimes, I will be happier when it’s all over.
Here’s to little SE’s!
Weme
Hi All
Saw your other post too Lizzie that really is great news.
Weme, so sorry for your loss. We (OH & I) are having our ‘annus horribilis’ we lost both his parents in Jan 11, dad had lung cancer but mum was fit as a fiddle. She died first and within 12 hours dad had gone too, so beautiful and devastating all at the same time, they’d been married 53+ years and I guess just couldn’t bear to be apart. Then we were just starting to get life back on track and booked our ‘holiday of a lifetime’ to new Zealand (we’ve been planning it for years but his dad being poorly had made us wait) and then bam, I’ve got BC and it’s postponed for another year. If all goes to plan my last chemo will be 9th Feb, the day I should have returned from NZ.
Gill13, I’m with you and don’t think I’ll ever get bored of being ordinary.
L4W
morning
werne, i’m so sorry to read about your OH too, and L4W, your parent in law, so many people seem to have had a stressful year just before BC, my OH half was run over this time last year, the car actually went over his leg, and at one point we thought he may loose it! Luckily he didn’t & he returned to work in june after about 7 months off, so we felt life was getting back on track too. now this, his turn to look after me!
L4W - at least NZ will be something to look forward to at the end of this, that is what i’m goint to try and focus on. i just want 2012 out of the way and bring on 2013!
i am also thinking short hair cut, maybe even tomorrow, althought i do want to try the cold cap
best wishes and SE, what SE’s!! (well i can hope)
Gill x
werne, i just wanted to wish you luck with your results for bone and ct scan, i’ve just had results of bone scan and thank god they were clear. i’m still waiting for a date for the ct scan.
its just an additional worry that we could do without
Gill x
Hi not sure when will start chemo but have my appt with oncologist today so am guessing it will be soon , so would like to join you lovely ladys , also have results of bone scan and c.t scan so am very scared . My Dr said I will have chemo, radiotherapy,tablets for 5years , already had double mx with full node clearence so not realy sure what to expect today xxjosie (bev)
Hi all,
It has also been a terrible year for me, probably my worst. I lost my mother in June to cancer, she was 84 so a good age but I had only just started to come to terms with that and 6 weeks after her death I was told I had breast cancer. Then only a couple of weeks ago my daughter who is on clomid for fertitlity treatment told me she was pregnant, at last I thought, good news only for her to miscarry a few days later. We have also had to cancel one holiday due to my mother only having weeks to live. Booked another for next month before I new about BC but now we will probably have to cancel that.
I feel like running away somewhere, where nobody can find me.
Sorry for my moan but axillary clearance has left me really down with a nasty seroma and also getting anxious about results tomorrow.
Thank you for listening
Big hugs x
this is a good place to have a moan, Sunshine, nobody seems to mind. i think once you get it all out you start to feel a bit better, a bit like having a scream, thats supposed to be good for you too.
i have come back from my appointment with Onc, she was lovely, it was horrible walking into the cancer centre though, i wanted to get back in the car and come straight back home
i’m starting chemo on 3rd Nov, so day after you Lizzy
i’m going to be having taxotere / carboplatin /herceptin, whatever that all means, i’ve been given a blue folder with loads of bedtime reading! and some steroids to take day before i start chemo
Josie1 - let us know how you get on, and when you’re starting
Gill x
Hi there everyone
I’ve just got back form CT scan, unfortuately I have just discovered I am allergic to the dye they give you and have spent 3 hours in A&E being treated for that, but they let me out eventually. Hopefully I wont have a similar reaction to the chemo
Weme
Josie1 - welcome I hope everything went ok today and you got your start date, isn’t waiting just the pitts
OMG weme that’s just what you needed… NOT. Hope you’re feeling better now.
Well don’t know what’s been going on today but I’ve only just managed to login. I was able to read posts but not reply!?! From what I could glean from the error files it was something to do with account authentification but it was working fine first thing this morning then I clicked on a link and it locked me out!!
Gill, perhaps we should all be prescribed a blue folder, nothing like a bit of bedtime reading to help you sleep
Sunshine, sounds like we’ve all had a terrible time of it lately, hopefully we’ve all reached the bottom and now the only way is up (oh no I just started singing (Yazz))!! Ask your onc about the holiday before you cancel, I only had to cancel mine cos it was 3 weeks touring round both islands and they thought it might be too strenuous. If it had been a relaxing holiday they wouldn’t have minded me going and could have worked my treatment round it, so it’s worth telling them before you cancel. Good luck for tomorrow, will be thinking of you and sending positive thoughts. I’ve got my pre-assessment tomorrow!?! Not sure what it will entail but don’t think they’ll tell me anything they haven’t already, just perhaps more detail and I’ll get a look round the oncology unit (state of the art, so I’m told).
t.t.f.n.
L4W
Morning L4W, guess what song i now have on my head!! thanks for that!
i don’t have a pre assessment booked, but i do have to have bloods taken 2 days before chemo, also have to have a heart scan, apparantly herceptin can affect the heart, so they keep an eye on it, also advised to get flu jab. and i’ve got check up in dentist booked for next week, thank goodness i’m off sick, so much to do, and i need to buy ginger biscuits!! lol
as for the blue folder, i spent 10 mins this morning looking for a red one??? i was convinced it was a red one they’d given me
i had a rubbish night sleep last night as my 6 year old decided to join me in the middle of the night and kept pulling quilt of my shoulders so i was freezing! a bit of bribery required for the next week, no trick or treating unless you stay in your own bed…
speak later, no doubt, have a good day whatever you do
Gill x
Hi ladies
Gill, sorry to hear you had a bad night’s sleep. I Had a bad night’s sleep due to abdominal pain following fertility treatmentand am now waiting to go to the hospital about that. I’ve got an ‘emergency’ appointment this afternoon.
Gill, you sound very organised. Yes I’m having a heart scan because I will be having Herceptin. Dentist is done and I’m having the flu jab on Monday.
Sunshine, sounds like you have been through the mill…sending you big hugs.
It’s pants having to cancel your holdays. We were meant to be going to Australia on 5 November to see family but have had to cancel that.
Fingers crossed all will go well at the hospital this pm as I know this sounds weird but I don’t want to delay the chemo for any longer and I’ve been Googling and think I have got ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome which can take a week to get over…I’m probably over reacting…damn Google!
Lizzyx