Chemo 3

The days ahead proved to be much more bearable than I had anticipated. The steroid alternative (Decadron) gave me welcomed relief from vomiting, although it didn't take away the feelings of nausea. My stomach felt like it was "bathing in toxic waste" (as Dr. Marla has put it) and I felt generally unwell. Nonetheless, it gave me solace to know that I was being kept from dehydration, which I have recently hypothesized as being the cause for the crazy eyes and blackout that occured during the second treatment. If I could be kept from vomiting (and drink at least 8 glasses of water per day), hopefully I could be kept from dehydrating, which would likely not only give me relief, but would hopefully prevent anything unusual from happening to me again.

I made it through the first three days feeling sick to my stomach, but without vomiting at all. But, of course, I wouldn't get of that easy! Sunday night all the feelings of sickness that had accumulated over the previous few days seemed to catch up to me and I had a small bout of vomiting late in the night. However, the vomiting provided me with some feelings of relief and from then on, the feelings of nausea diminished more and more.

By Tuesday, the nausea lifted and I was left feeling weak and exhausted. The Zofran (anti-nauseant which I was taking in combination with the steroid) also left me with an irritating headache, which reminded me of the pinching sensation you get when you eat something really cold, like icecream. It also left me with a few days of mild constipation, which it has a bad reputation for. They say Zofran is a powerful drug that has been a shining example of the leaps made in medications used to provide relief from cancer treatments. For me, on the other hand, it seemed to cause more harm than good. It did not prevent vomiting for me (at least not on its own) and it caused irritating side effects (like headache and constipation). Some people say that the constipation caused by Zofran can be extremely brutal, causing a great deal of pain and discomfort. I even heard one lady say that constipation was the worst side-effect of chemo (little did she know that it was likely not even chemo that caused this dreadful side-effect, but more likely the Zofran she was taking to relieve nausea).

Although I experienced some nausea, fatigue, and headache during the first week of the third treatment, the side effects were much less severe than the previous two treatments. I give credit to Decadron for most of this relief. Not only did Decadron stop me from vomiting, but it gave me an excellent appetite and a small boost of energy (although I was exhausted and drained, I was less so than previous treatments). I was actually able to gain 5 lbs during this treatment, where I had previously lost approx. 1-2 lbs during each of the previous two treatments.

Once the first week passed, I began to regain my strength and slowly began to feel normal. I could only look back on the third treatment feeling happy that nothing odd happened and that my body was able to remain relatively strong considering all its been through over the past few months.