Breast Cancer Journey – Chemotherapy

January 9 to March 29 and beyond, 2025

(I’m reserving photos to the end of this post since there are needles and other potentially triggering images. There’ll be a space before you get to them. I’ll drop some ‘easy’ ones in the main body.)

I couldn’t write about chemotherapy, except in chats. Even in email I tended to answer tersely, not knowing what to say.

So what’s it like? What was it like for me?

 

Chemotherapy started on 9 January. 2025.

I was getting a drug called paclitaxel, Taxol. Along with the Taxol I’d have pre-meds each designed to minimise common  severe allergic (hypersensitivity) reactions – steroids, antihistamines (Benadryl), and H2 antagonists before the infusion.  Before each session, you’re weighed, vitals taken (temperature, oxygen levels, blood pressure – mine was always too high, They take blood before each chemo session to make sure you’re strong enough to go through it. At first this is from a vein in your arm, as usual, but chemo drugs are strong and can damage your veins so a port that bypasses this site is inserted surgically at some point in your journey. i waited quite a few weeks for mine. Another story.

Once the blood test results are in, about 45 minutes later, they’re relayed to the medical oncologist who approves the session and orders the drug to be brought to your station. This can make the appointment time quite long, the waiting. Mount Sinai’s chemo care clinic has about thirty chairs and a half dozen beds. It’s a busy clinic and starts to feel familiar all too soon. There are pretend skylights on the ceiling and the air is cold. I would settle in on my assigned and reclined chair, wearing fluffy slippers -my feet elevated, wearing comfy clothes, and tucked in with a warmed blanket and a couple of pillows. There’s actually a feeling of being pampered despite the circumstances. There’s a pantry room  nearby and a visiting cart offering simple sandwiches, jello, apple sauce, juices, cheese, crackers, and sometimes cookies – you’re encouraged to eat well to help you tolerate these sessions. But those sandwiches – ugh. The pantry is there due to a generous sponsorship. Thank you, sponsors, but please improve the sandwiches. There’s cheese (white bread with a slice of American (plastic) cheese, egg salad – more like chopped egg with a suggeston of mayonnaise, tuna salad – the fishiest yet blandest scrape of fish, yet the one I chose the most often because it had a taste.

Saline solution comes first and drips in slowly the entire time. The pre-meds come in small bags and go through quickly. You aren’t really aware of them. However, the Benadryl was a real problem for me. While some people found it relaxing, it would make me intensely drowsy and even unwell. I dreaded this one. All the liquids, including the ones you’re encouraged to drink, fill your bladder quickly and that meant I was walking to the toilet often. I learned after the first week to wear sweatpants that I could easily take down and up to avoid accidents. Mostly, I felt I was sleepwalking and clung to my IV pole for support. Zombified was the word I used – frequently.

A second drug that helps with HER-positive cancers, Herceptin, comes next. I didn’t notice it. The nurse warns you when your Taxol is coming. I didn’t feel any different. The whole process takes about two hours. I will get the Taxol every week for 12 weeks,  Herceptin every three weeks for about a year.

Apart from one episode I’ve blogged about, the worst thing for me was the IV insertion. I have tricky veins – small and deep. My arms were butchered. On my second week I had a bad red, sore and itchy reaction on my arm, and almost every week I had black bruises and swollen arms. The nurses and the doctor weren’t bothered. Their various reactions – skin reaction, allergy, Infection – I had steroid ointment and also antibiotics – my skin stayed more or less the same, No one blamed the actual IV insertions.

I wasn’t looking forward to the port but I was suffering without it. I asked if it could be bumped to an earlier date and was told that everyone wants it sooner. It felt unjust in a triage system.

There’s not much to say about the port going in. It’s a surgical procedure under sedation. a catheter goes into the vein above your collarbone and a round plastic ‘port’ is inserted lower in your chest. My surgeon was friendly and talked to me about what was happening. He left the room at some point muttering about ‘close to an artery’ (what?) and afterwards said my veins were tricky. Yep. The procedure took longer than expected but it was finally done. It took three or four weeks before it could be used. The healing was slow and my veins still didn’t want to cooperate. Now I had a sore port insertion site and bruised and swollen arms. On one particular day, when my port was said to be ‘clogged,’ my arm was used again. When my IV was finally taken out I showed the nurse how swollen my arm was. He shrugged it off. I asked for ice. The swelling didn’t go away and my arm got numb, red and tingly. It was like a thousand bee stings or the worst carpal tunnel syndrome you can imagine. Later we read it might be a ‘chemo burn’ where the chemo drug leaks straight into your arm. Despite many questions, no answers ever came. I’m writing this section in early December. My arm finally feels normal, but now and again if I use it too much, the heavy tingling starts again and I have to shake it out. The gift that keeps on giving, my cancer friends would say. I did keep bringing it up with my doctor, who first thought about ordering an ultrasound to see if I had a blood clot (great!) but then said it was an allergic reaction, take antihistamines. I beg to differ.

Side effects? It’s different for everyone. There are many types of chemotherapy drugs and they have various similar and different lists of common and rarer challenges. While in chemotherapy I saw some people retching, vomiting, being surrounded by medical staff when some unknown (to me) reaction happened. One man was wheeled speedily to the emergency department. Some lay weakly in the beds with eyes closed or wide open. Some sat in their chairs with laptops, tablets, talking on the phone, like they were getting a manicure and not having toxic drugs dripping into their veins. Overall, the ward is quiet. There are lots of nurses – perhaps a dozen,

I was spared nausea most of the time – I had drugs for this, just in case, and twice I took half a pill – but many days I was too dizzy to stand. On those days I would feel I was blacking out. I considered the fact that this was the end. It wasn’t. Diarrhoea was a constant. Still is. Fatigue, yes. My nose was bloody every day and my eyes felt so dry it was if someone had scoured them. Eye drops did nothing to help. I developed blepharitis and many weeks of a very swollen eyelid. Nothing I did made it feel or look better, including antibiotics. Many days were spent lying on the couch napping on and off while the TV showed inane shows and movies. My audiobooks and meditation audios were friends in those days and continue to be so.  Except for hospital visits, I saw no one. I spoke to no one. I chatted online a lot. I took a couple of weeks off work and then worked only a few hours. Life had changed and I didn’t know when or if it would ever come back.

My last day of Taxol came on 29 March. Hooray.

My last day of Herceptin came on 11 December. Hooray.

A note: Oh, I lost my hair. Not everyone does apparently. You can also get a ‘cold cap’ which looks like a hairdresser’s dryer hood attached to a machine. I see a few women with those but I had no real interest. I want to talk about my hair but I’ll do a separate post for that.

A real-life email to myself (sic): 29 February, 2025