Side Effects
- Cold sensitivity - noticed it in the parking lot walking away from my day 1 infusion. the OX drug creates a weird sensation where if my fingers or face got too cold, there was a weird tingle/pain/electrical type of feeling.
- Gastrointestinal Symptoms - Almost no nausea, no vomiting, but my appetite went away around day 3-4, and recovered slowly day 5. No constipation or diarrhea, so that's a win.
- Fatigue/Malaise - This was the big issue for me this cycle. Started day 1, got bad day 3, slowly got back to normal by day 7 or so.
- Embarassing Episode - So, on day 3, I got up feeling pretty bad. Exhausted, no appetite, and generally yucky. My right arm was hurting (my port is in my right chest cavity), and as I went to the hospital to have the pump removed, the pain kinda migrated to my chest. Don't be 50 year old chubby dude and say you're having pains center chest in a hospital, unless you really want to head to the ER. Yeah, my oncologist sent me to the ER, they did a bunch of tests, kept me overnight, I got up the next day to run uphill on a treadmill (Cardiac Stress Test). All imaging, stress tests, etc... turned out fine. To be honest, I get anxious/worry about medical stuff, and I think I got myself upset. Won myself a huge hospital bill, and a 24 hour period in the ER and hospital room all alone because there's no visitors during the apocalypse. Bottom line here is now that I've been through a cycle, while I know my side effects can get worse, etc, I'm not going to allow myself to get anxious and worked up again. Ugh.
So, It's Saturday Apr 25 as I write this, and it's my turn back in the barrel Tuesday Apr 28. Hopefully cycle 2 goes as well as cycle 1 did.
Want even more details? Check my daily chemo symptom log in the sidebar.