The First 21 Days Of My Side Effects On Taxotere and Cytoxan Chemo Treatment
I started chemo treatment for breast cancer on March 20, 2009. The chemo drugs they gave me were Taxotere and Cytoxan. You can read about my first day here. This treatment is done once every three weeks. I have documented the side effects from each day for your reference. If you are undecided about whether or not to do chemo, I hope this will help you.
Day 1: Full of Energy, Hiccups at night before bed, lasted about 45 minutes.
Day 2: Woke Up Full of Energy, Sleepy by 8 PM, but feel good otherwise.
Day 3: Feel good, head a little foggy
Day 4: Woke up feeling good, energetic, head a little foggy, feeling tired as day goes on.
Day 5: Very tired. Food doesn’t have much flavor.
Day 6: Tired. Achy Body, Food doesn’t have much flavor.
Day 7: Stomach pains after eating, itchy scalp, itchy back, stomach/back pain at night
Day 8: Stomach pain after eating – but not as bad as yesterday, itchy scalp, itchy back
Day 9: Feel Good
Day 10: Feel Good, started getting sore on tongue. Feels like when you eat too much sugar.
Day 11: Feel Good, tongue still sore. Bought Dr. Katz TheraBreath Oral Rinse & started using 3 times a day
Day 12: Feel Good but woke up with mouth/jaw pain – like I’m wearing a retainer, hair starting to come out?
Tongue feels better.
Day 13: Feel Good, Woke up with mouth/jaw pain again, I’m pretty sure I’m losing more hair than usual.
Tongue sore gone.
Day 14: Feel Good, Hair comes out when I brush it.
Day 15: Feel Good, Hair comes out when I wash it. Received a Nuepogen shot today because of low white blood cell count
Day 16: Feel OK, throat started hurting in the afternoon, possibly from the shot. Temp of 99.9, Hair is very thin now.
Day 17: Very tired, sore throat, high temp of 101.9, low temp of 99.0 all day. Hair coming out a LOT. Cut it shoulder
length.
Day 18: Temperature back to normal but now have a cough. Looks like I got a minor cold. Hair even thinner today.
Day 19: Still coughing but don’t feel too bad. Hair falling out without help of a hand or brush
.
Day 20: Coughing but feel OK. Hair is soooooo thin. I’m starting to feel self-conscious about it.
Day 21: Coughing but feel OK. The part in my hair is larger than normal. I have a bald spot in the top back of my head.
Please remember that everyone reacts differently and these side effects may not happen to you. Also, you may have side effects that I have not had. You can read about all the side effects for these drugs from my earlier post.
I start my second round of chemo tomorrow if my blood counts are good. I will keep track of those side effects, too. I have heard that the side effects could be different with each cycle. I am doing four cycles and will update my blog with side effects after each round.
Please feel free to ask me any questions or to make a comment below. I look forward to hearing from you.
If you would like to talk to others or share your story, I have created a forum for discussion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I created some Breast Cancer Shirts that I have for sale on my site at YouDeserveIt.com
I created these after being diagnosed with breast cancer. I tried to find shirts for sale on the internet and was shocked at the high prices. So I decided to make some myself. Your purchase of any of these shirts will help me in my battle of breast cancer. If you have a suggestion of a shirt I will try to make it. Please let me know what you think by submitting a comment.
$20.00 $23.00
�
$20.00 $18.00
Just read your journal for the first 21 days. Since this was my first day and I am very nervous this was a huge help of what I may except. Thank you for being so dilleigent on this. This site is so nice to read and to be able to talk to others who are about where you are now. My prayers are with all on this site.
How great it is to find that you are doing this. I go to the oncologist on 5/12 to find out what my course of treatment is. What a great idea to keep a public journal for people like me to be able to read it. Keep the positive attitude and you will win. May God Bless you!
I don’t know if you still check this, but I just started the same treatment last week. My head is crazy-itchy, so I did a search and found you! Hope all is going well with you! Cute shirts! Can’t click the link on the last one to see what it says though.