Blog / Random thoughts and musings.

The First Weekend

Well, it looks like my hopes that chemo – and especially the first few – would be fairly uneventful, was a bit overly optimistic. I continued to go downhill this weekend with more and more side-effects piling on. By far the worst was the mouth sores (now aren’t you glad you read my blog?) which started on Friday. This happens to about 40% of chemo patients. By Saturday evening it was extremely painful, and wasn’t getting any better with frequent salt-water rinsing. I called the doctor’s answering service and their on-call called in a prescription for “Magic Mouthwash #3”. This is something that each pharmacy makes itself, and has its own recipe for, so I don’t really know what’s in the one I got, but they all tend to include some kind of topical analgesic like Lidocaine, some Maalox, and some Benadryl. The Lidocaine numbs my mouth completely, which is nice, but only lasts 20 minutes or so. I’ve also had a monster headache all weekend, sore throat, and runny nose, so I suspect I’ve got a cold, plus I’ve been exhausted and napped many times on Saturday, and most of the day Sunday. Also the peripheral neuropathy has arrived – numbness and tingling in the fingertips.

Still no nausea, so I keep looking at that silver lining! I’m hoping today will be a turning point and I’ll start feeling gradually better… until my next treatment on the 13th!