Hello everyone, have been a way a while as life has continued to evolve around hubby’s treatment.
Update:
Following first chemo cycle he became neutropenic and had an overnight stay in hospital, sent home with antibiotics. These resulted in hepatitis and a subsequent weeks delay in his next chemo session. Symptoms were orange/dark brown urine and diarrhoea, yellow in colour and feeling very tired. By the third week he also started to lose his hair, so a couple of visits to the barber soon sorted him with a modern, almost peaky blinder style cut!
One week later than planned he went through his second cycle of docetaxel, as usual he has to take 8 steroid tablets day before, day of and day after treatment. These help to counteract any adverse reactions to the chemo but they also cause him to feel totally wired, unable to sleep, increased appetite and subsequent fluid retention. His mood is more boisterous and he loses his usual tolerance and patience. Two or three days after stopping the steroids he then has a night of being up all night, passing all the retained fluid and his normally calm temperament returns.
10 days after the second cycle he came home one evening after work complaining of feeling really cold, he had a temperature of 38.2 c and a phone call to the hospital resulted in him being admitted again for antibiotics. Bloods showed some liver inflammation and raised inflammatory markers, so doctors felt he was brewing an infection. We are hoping that on this occasion the antibiotics will not affect his liver (been prescribed different ones to last time) and his next cycle will go ahead next week.
Life in general is good, he is working between cycles but many would say too hard. He has had many different side effects – numb toes, itchy skin, nausea, hair loss, bone pain, fatigue, breathless, back pain, metallic taste, off food and alcohol etc etc BUT we remember and keep reminding ourselves this is a result of the treatment not the disease. The treatment is necessary to slow the growth of the cancer and this current treatment will be over by mid-February.
There are still days where life seems unfair but we never really and truly understood the saying “take each day as it comes” until now. We thought we did but it is not until you are faced with so much uncertainty that you truly understand the true meaning of the phrase. We work hard to smile everyday and find small things really funny. You’ve got to laugh!!
My learnings are: take each day as it comes, keep calm and patient and tolerant. The effects of the HT, chemo, Steroids, Filgrastim injections, constant painkillers, lack of sleep, mental worries about themselves, spouse and families and work all add up to making someone different to what they were prior to the diagnosis. We made the decision early on to talk about everything and that has worked for us but any wife or partner who is supporting someone through this must remember to take care of themselves. I can’t cope when I have days on end of no sleep, so get proper rest, meet your friends and take time out. That has been important for me and it enables me to be as supportive and loving and understanding as I possibly can be.
Sending all my love to everyone on this journey
SunnyJane xx