Deal with side effects swiflty (Chemo Survival Guide Part 5)
There are many things you can do to prepare yourself for chemotherapy (as I’ve shown in the various posts in this series). While some of these things involve action from your part (i.e. setting up a chemotherapy survival kit or getting the appropriate clothing to make yourself comfortable), many require that you adopt a frame of mind and do a little research. By far one of the most important things to consider when getting ready for chemotherapy treatments is the side effects that have given the treatments such a bad reputation. Commonly known are nausea, vomiting, loss of hair, and loss of weight, but there may also be a lot more side effects to reckon with and these vary from medicine to medicine, as well as person to person. Keeping yourself informed about the possible side effects and exploring ways to treat them go a long way towards improving the quality of your chemotherapy experience. There is nothing wrong with being too prepared, even if you happen to be one of the lucky patients who don’t get any side effects at all.
The side effects from chemotherapy are usually more discomforting than the cancer itself. A lot of people don’t even feel anything when they have cancer. The side effects from chemo, on the other hand, can be very distressing and the extreme discomfort some patients feel, coupled with the state of mind that the treatment can get you in, are a serious threat to the treatment process. Patients may stop undertaking treatment if they feel too affected by the mental and physical toll that chemotherapy can take.
While stopping all the side effects is nearly impossible, reducing their effects on you can definitely be done. A frank conversation with your doctor is probably the first step towards understanding what to expect and how you will be treated for those side effects. However, given the almost assembly line way that patients get treated at some hospitals or clinics, your best bet is probably to discuss what to expect with patients that have undergone the treatments you will undertake. You can find patient info in the web, but the patients you meet while visiting oncologist offices or clinics are a good source of help as well. Before and after your treatment, share your experiences with fellow patients and you may find out that they have novel solutions to problems you may be faced with. Regardless of how you go about it, you need to learn what side effects to expect, understand them as best as you can, and learn what the treatments for them are. Only by doing this will you be able to reduce their toll on you. The earlier in the process you learn this, the better. It is probably much better to be the patient that never got acid indigestion from chemo because you always took Prilosec, Protonix, or Zantac straight off the bat, than the guy throwing up his dinner due to extreme acid indigestion while the nurses fetch Pepcid.
A word of caution, though… as I have said many times before, every patient is different and what happens to each one of us in the chemotherapy process will be completely different than what happens to someone else. Even if the condition and treatments are the same, our bodies will always react differently. This will not be different with whatever action you take to solve whichever side effects may plague you. You may get nausea and the first medicine they give you may be Zofran. It may work wonders on you and you never throw up again or, as happened to me, you may actually throw up more and then try a few more medicines until you find one that works (Anzemet in my case). You may start taking Prilosec for your acid stomach problems only to have it stop working on your second round of treatments. A quick switch to Protonix may solve the problem or you may need to experiment more. The point is this: always understand that the process of fighting the chemo side effects is an active and on-going one. You need to continue to battle these side effects because if you beat them, the quality of your life as a chemotherapy patient will improve greatly.
After surviving cancer and coming off of chemotherapy, I have come to understand that the battle with cancer may be more of a mental one than a physical one. Chemo can make such a strong impact on some patients that it may even challenge the will to live of those patients. I was recently discussing this with a fellow cancer patient. He told me that if the doctors had not solved how bad his side effects were, he would have been happier dying. Psychological help is just as important in chemo as your treatments are. That is why I always tell those that will undergo chemo to find the strongest reasons to live before undergoing treatments and then make sure they are somehow reminded of them during treatment. I had recently married when I was diagnosed with cancer and, even if it may sound corny, it was my love for my wife that kept me going even on the darkest of treatment days. A picture of her that I carried in my chemo bag helped me through those times. It may also help to remember that the chemo process, especially for those with survivable cancers, is just a small fraction of your life and, while it may feel really bad sometimes, it will be a piece of your past someday… a memory that helps make you a stronger person.
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