Not sure where to post this but I have recently been diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer and chemo ( belts and braces) starts next Wednesday. I’m scared and would like to hear of others’ experience
I can understand you being scared - the whole process from thinking there might be something wrong, through getting told you have cancer then waiting for treatment to start is very scary.
My own experience of chemo was that it was an anti-climax. The canula they used was the same size as the one used to inject the contrast when I had a CT scan and after that I just read my kindle for 2 or 3 hours whilst the drugs were slowly going through the dripfeed.
Don’t even consider driving yourself there and back. You probably won’t be able to concentrate properly and (depending on the type of chemo) you may feel dizzy, very tired and you may have soreness around where the canula was inserted.
I won’t sugar coat this, you may have some or all of the side effects you’ve been told about - or you may not some people are lucky enough to sail through it. Don’t make my mistake and suffer in silence thinking “it’s chemo, I knew I’d feel bad” - getting the anti-nausea medication right can take a while but it does work.
On the plus side - I wouldn't be writing this if I hadn’t had chemo. I was diagnosed at stage 4 in October 2013 and told I might not see Christmas 2013 if I didn’t have chemo. Any side effects fade away after a short while.
Good luck for Wednesday - I hope I haven’t mad you even more scared!
Thanks for your reply Dave and so great to hear that chemo has worked for you. It’s the fear of the unknown for me at this stage but I know it has a purpose in my treatment plan so I’ll do my best to manage the side effects by asking for help and hoping I get through this next 6 months easier than I’m expecting to. Best wishes To you
I am a breast cancer lady, so not of much help to you I'm afraid. However, I am sure that you would like to follow posts from others who have gone through the same. If you go up to the blue banner at the top of this page, you will find the search facility on the left hand side. Click this and insert 'colon cancer'. This will bring up previous posts on the subject.
I see that you are due to start chemo on Wednesday and hope that all goes well. This is a scary time when you don't really know what to expect, but it should get easier with time. Please let us know how you get on.
Thank you Jolamine. Yes it is a scary time, fear of what’s to come whilst trying to be positive about the reasons for the treatment. I keep visualising what a good feeling it will be at the end of treatment and I’m starting to repair.
hope all is going well with you. I had breast cancer 5 years ago and just came off the survivorship programme in May this year not knowing I had already developed primary colon cancer. But I didn’t have chemo then.
