Noun: chemotherapy

The treatment of disease by the use of chemical substances, especially the treatment of cancer by cytotoxic and other drugs.

 

Chemotherapy prevents cancer cells from growing and spreading by destroying the cells or stopping them from dividing.  It also can unintentionally harm other types of rapidly dividing non-cancer cells, causing side effects.

 

There is no doubt that whilst chemotherapy does appear to be effective in the treatment of cancer, this is some seriously toxic shit that they are gonna pump into your body.  I would like to think that in the next 50 years or so, there will be a much neater treatment and ultimate cure for cancer, and that future generations will look back on chemotherapy like we do on the use of leeches.  I personally favour the use of some kind of Star Trek-esque medical scanner that locates and zaps the cancer cells in your lunch hour.  “Fancy coming down the pub Barbara?”  “Not today Sharon, just nipping to the clinic for a quick cancer eradication”.  Job done.

 

It has to be said that it is a low point when you discover that you are going to have chemotherapy.  Everyone knows that chemotherapy makes you feel like shit, and makes you go bald. You have visions of yourself laying on your bed looking like Gollum; frail, cold and alone.  The fact that they are giving it to you to try to prevent you from dying of The Cancer is secondary to the unwelcome Gollum image in your head.

 

There are many different types of chemotherapy.  Some actually do allow you to keep your luscious locks; but unfortunately most breast cancer chemotherapies do turn you into Yul Brynner fairly reliably.   .

 

So, once you have digested the fact that you may be able to attend this year’s Halloween party as Uncle Fester, without having to wear a baldie cap, you then start to listen to and take in the long list of possible side effects.  Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, blood clots, fatigue, weight gain (it’s never bloody weight loss is it?!), insomnia, bleeding gums, loss of taste, nerve damage, low immunity…. It goes on and on.

 

And then you are told that if you develop an infection or a temperature at any time, you have to contact your chemo team immediately, as this can escalate very quickly and lead to DEATH!  If your legs start to swell, it may mean you have developed a blood clot and there is risk of deep vein thrombosis.  You have to go straight to A&E and show them your chemo card to jump the queue, as this can also escalate very quickly and lead to DEATH!  It is proper scary.

 

You go along to wherever you are going to be having your treatment and meet your chemo team, who in my experience were a team of very well trained medical professionals, who also had a wicked sense of humour, put me at ease (as much as is possible) and brought coffee and a listening ear, as well as medicine, as and when needed.  They weigh you, measure you, take your blood, run through all the possible side effects AGAIN (in case you are not terrified enough).  And then they send you on your way to come back in the very near future to commence being poisoned.

 

Chemo can be administered orally for some cancers, but for most breast cancers it is administered intravenously.  Depending in your oncologist and your particular case, it may be weekly, once a fortnight or once every 3 weeks; and it will span anything from a few weeks to several months.  In my particular case I had 4 doses of AC chemotherapy, which were administered 3 weeks apart, and then 12 doses of Taxol, administered weekly.  A total of 24 weeks of treatment.  Daunting.  You can grow 60% of a human being in that time.

 

The first time you sit in that chair and they plumb you in is a bit of a surreal experience.  You feel totally fit and healthy (apart from the washing machine going on in your stomach), You have walked into the medical centre or hospital as fit as a fiddle, with a full head of hair, and then you watch them squeeze a few litres of toxic waste into your body, which you know is going to make you ill to some degree, in order to cure you of a disease that you were hardly aware that you had.  I have to admit there have been times when I have suspected some kind of population thinning conspiracy theory, or that the government has made a deal with the drug manufacturers in order to keep making them countless millions.  It just feels so weird and wrong that you are voluntarily letting someone pump you full of a noxious substance that is going to make you feel like shit.

 

What you might not realize when you have chemotherapy is that they pour a myriad of other drugs and concoctions into you as well as the chemo itself.   The whole process can take from between 2 to 4 hours.  First they flush you through with saline, then there are anti-sickness drugs, also antihistamines to prevent an allergic reaction.  Then more flushing, then the chemo itself and more flushing still.  And all this fluid makes you pee like a horse!  You are constantly having to unplug yourself from the mains and wheel your IV trolley off to the loo.  It’s a right faff.  The first lot of chemo (the AC) that I had is bright orange, and when you pee it looks like you are peeing orange Fanta (without the fizz..).  Which, I must admit, is quite amusing the first time it happens.

 

Before I started chemo, I had visions of having to sit in a dreadful torture chair, in a room full of wretched, miserable people.  In reality, whilst if given the choice I would swerve the whole experience, it isn’t actually that dreadful at all.  The side effects can be, but the actual administration of the drugs really isn’t all that unpleasant.

 

You find that you get into a pattern with your chemo.  You get really friendly with the nurses, and quite often you’ll see the same patients at the clinic or hospital.  It becomes a little gang, which is quite nice.  You can have a moan about all of the same side effects that you will be going through.  And then if some patients finish their treatment before you, it is a real loss to the gang!

 

Once that first dose is out of the way, there is a mixture of emotions.  Relief that it is over.  Surprise that you feel pretty much the same as you did before they filled you up.  Anxiety about the side effects.  Dread that the next dose is just around the corner.  Happy that you are one dose closer to the end of the treatment.

 

For me, with AC chemo, I was pumped so full of steroids that barely slept for the next 3 nights.  I was like the Duracel bunny.   It felt like I had wasps in my head.  I just couldn’t relax.  I’d get up at 3 in the morning, unable to switch off and sleep, and decide to empty the dishwasher, or put the washing on.  And then on day 4, it was like someone hit the extreme slow-motion button on the world in general.  The wasps had vacated my head and were replaced with cotton wool soaked in treacle.  

 

Somebody came along in the night and attached lead weights to all of my limbs.  I basically became an inanimate blob.  I think I slept for 20 hours straight, and when I was awake I was good for just about nothing.

 

As the days go by, you feel progressively better, and by about day 10 you feel about as good as you will whilst on chemo.  You constantly check your hair in the mirror to see if it is falling out, and are waiting to see to what degree the other side effects will hit you.

 

The effects of chemo are cumulative.  Just as you start to feel almost ok, you have to go back for your next dose, and the second time, I found, the recovery was a bit slower, and the ‘good’ days were not quite as good as on the previous cycle.

 

Before you start chemo, you have visions of your whole life stopping whilst you are receiving treatment.  But, you soon realize that life goes on.  The hubbub of the house, the kids chattering and arguing; meals still need to be cooked, chores still need to be done.  I think it is the mundane ‘normal’ stuff that gets you through it. 

 

Yes, you do feel a bit like you have always had two thirds of a bottle of vodka the night before, but the dishwasher still needs unloading.  And the dog will not stop looking at you with those big brown eyes unless you get up off your arse and take him for a walk.

 

You will have totally shit days, but you will also have good days.  Grab those days with both hands and get out and do whatever it is you enjoy doing.  Go for a meal, go bowling with the kids, have a glass or prosecco and enjoy the sunshine in the beer garden at your local.  However long your course of chemo is, it is too long to be sat on your sofa watching box sets on Netflix feeling sorry for yourself the whole time. 

 

Plenty of time to do that on your shit days.