(no pressure!)
Today I had the first of twelve, weekly chemotherapy sessions using Taxol, a different “cocktail” to the first four, three-weekly sessions.
I was given a room with a bed this time instead of a reclining chair (the treatment rooms are allocated randomly) and that made things a bit congested – equipment and furniture everywhere! Margaret, my lovely Kenyan nurse who was with me for my very first session was back from an extended visit to her family in the Masai Mara and she will be with me every week from here onwards.
My Consultant Clinical Oncologist came to see me with the Breast Cancer Support Nurse and they talked me through:
- the administration and potential side-effects of Taxol (paclitaxel);
- the added monoclonal antibodies treatment, starting next week, alongside the Taxol;
- the expected pathway for roughly the next 6 months of treatment.
The Taxol treatment is milder than EC as it is administered more frequently but in smaller quantities. It requires different premeds and is an infusion lasting one hour, with the cold cap for only one hour following, instead of 1 1/2 hours.
I was advised to protect my toenails and fingernails with nail varnish as this chemo cocktail can lift the nail bed and it has been shown that dark nail varnish helps to block this. That shouldn’t be a problem!
The most common side effect of Taxol is a tingling feeling in the fingers and toes – peripheral neuropathy – I can cope with that.
The monoclonal antibodies rarely cause any side-effects, but they want to keep me under observation for six hours next week just to be sure. We will be going to the hospital to start at 08:30 next week. It’s going to be a long day!
Besides helping to minimise hair loss, I was told that the cold cap also protects new hair growth which is probably already coming through (it’s not very apparent yet, unfortunately!). So it’s still worth having it.
Instead of getting a take-away bag of medication, there is just one anti-nausea drug to take tonight and tomorrow. My white blood cell count has actually increased since last time, so Colin is disappointed because he was becoming an expert at giving me the Saturday injection!
Everything looks like it’s going to be a bit more protracted than we thought it would be at first, so our travel plans are still on hold.
My surgery will be scheduled about 4-6 weeks after the end of my chemotherapy so maybe it’ll happen around the last week of May. Hopefully that’ll still be a lumpectomy rather than a full mastectomy; they won’t know until they analyse the excised breast tissue to achieve a clear margin. Radiotherapy may be 4-6 weeks after that, probably every day for 4 weeks.
I’m staying positive with the good progress so far. With only a week to go to the next chemo session I’m hoping that I won’t suffer any side-effects and that it’ll be plain sailing for a while. I may not post on the blog every week unless there’s anything significant to report, so please assume all is well unless you hear otherwise.
As always your emails, calls and messages are very welcome and encouraging!