SIXTH ROUND OF CHEMO

My 6th chemo session was April 22, 2015 and was the first where I felt more physically ill, with generalized body aches and a lot of headaches and dizziness.  It’s the headaches that feel the worst. Overall, I’ve been feeling very tired and sluggish the first couple weeks after chemo, and the third week I’m finally feeling back to normal.  But then it’s time for my next round.  I’ve also noticed that I start losing my voice the day of chemo and have hoarseness for a couple days afterward.

I got a new symptom too.  The chemo starts to break out of the blood vessels mostly in the soles of the feet and palms of the hands.  It causes redness, swelling, pain, and itching.  The only symptom on my hands is it causes my thumbs to get red and a bit swollen.  I have most of the symptoms on the bottoms of my feet.  It begins about a week and a half after chemo, where my feet start peeling a lot.  I made the mistake of using an emery board to scrap off the dead skin.  This helped tremendously in getting all the peeling skin off and making my feet smooth again, but I found out it causes too much irritation.  Afterwards my feet began to get extremely red, mottled, swollen, and extremely painful.  It’s hard to walk for a couple days.  Then the pain settles down and the itching begins, and it itches constantly and continuously for about a week.  I’d rather put up with pain than constant itching. Then, just a few days before my next round of chemo my feet go back to normal.

I still consider these minor side effects.  I still have my hair, and I don’t have nausea and vomiting! And hey, it’s not breast cancer so I still have my breasts too!