side effects

It is all very well reading about drug side effects on the side of a bottle, or even having them carefully explained to you by medical staff, but it really doesn't seem to help prepare for when they hit.

Theres no denying it, the last few days have been really tough. Earlier in the week I started to get chest pain, which was attributed to be inflammation of the old ticker probably caused by one of the drugs on day 1. Not very nice, but only moderately uncomfortable so I'd been coping with that.

The yellow peril, Lemonchello, Methotrexate, finished its 24 hour poisoning campaign on Tuesday. From then it was a day of recuperative treatments to lessen its side effects. So all that finished weds eve. And i guess it felt quite weird for the first time in a week i was not connected to any pipes. Seemed to me like one of the eery silences they talked about between the lines in the Great War, a superfical calm.

There had been signs on Tuesday night that my mouth was suffering. But by NYE Weds night it was bad, mouth lining definitely breaking up. And also felt like the stomach and intestinal ones were going too. An uncomfortable night with no sleep. Woke up to find i had skin rashes, sore eyes as well (but these are really not so bad - cheap tatoos).

So last 3 days. yes they've been sore. Really sore. Hogmanay was the longest day as I had managed no sleep previously. Since then I've had sleeping pills, and slept, that is a huge bonus. I am convinced you can trade earned sleep tokens for the ability to cope with pain. Good sleep is a key to this.

I am still not out of the woods for the nastier aspects of this stage one. The chemo of stage one is over and we are waiting for my white cells to fight back. Whichever way, the nursing and medical support has been amazing and have given me the confidence to cope with what the chemo throws at me. Tomorrows a brand new day and hopefully a whole load of angry white blood cells are going to wake up then to and start on some happy havoc.