In Retrospect, Was It Really So Bad?

I remember when I first started chemotherapy treatments six years ago. Like every other new cancer patient, I had no idea what to expect. I assumed I would react as my dad did 36 years earlier. Radiation was as easy as pie for him, but chemotherapy made him so sick that I asked his oncologist why in the world he kept putting the poisons in him.

Confronting treatment decision anxiety

In fact, from the time my dad died and I was diagnosed, I steadfastly resolved that if I was ever diagnosed with cancer, I would do radiation or surgery, but chemotherapy was out of the question. It hadn't saved my dad. Instead, he was sicker than sick the entire six months he lived.

My resolution was quickly tossed out of the window when my oncologist told me that I had one option to treat my stage IV lung cancer - chemotherapy. I didn't think about it. I simply asked, "How soon can we get started?"

Chemo made me extremely ill

Well, sure enough, I was one of those people who was very ill from chemotherapy. None of the anti-nausea pills helped at all. We tried a variety of things to combat it. Nothing worked. It became obvious that I was that person who just had to suck it up and endure for a few days during the first week after treatment.

I had the same reaction after every treatment. The day of the treatment, I felt great. In fact, my mom and my husband and I always went to eat Mexican food after I got finished. The following day, I always got up and went to work.

All bets were off by the next day, though. For at least 48 hours, I would get out of bed only to throw up or to use the restroom. I couldn't make myself eat or drink. I could only sleep, cuddled up to my Sheltie on one side of me and my Eskie on the other.

After my body had purged as much of the poison as it could, I would begin to feel a little better. My husband and I always knew when I had turned the corner because I would come into the den and tell him I was ready to eat. I always wanted the same thing - roast beef from Furr's Cafeteria.

Is it worth it?

Looking back, I was only horribly ill from the chemo treatments for two or three days out of every three-week cycle. Despite the fact that I carried on with life as much as possible for the remaining 17 or 18 days, I remembered only the days when I was so sick.

Toward the end of my treatments, I started getting really depressed at the idea of submitting again to more chemotherapy. I was just beginning to feel good again when it was time to willingly put my arm out and allow poison to be dripped into me.

I really wasn't sure it was worth it. If chemo treatments had gone on too much longer, I might have called it quits.

Hindsight offers perspective

Retrospectively, I didn't have it so bad. There were those few days every three weeks when I didn't feel very good. But, otherwise, I continued to work, to walk my dogs, and even to sometimes take them to agility practice and/or trials. In other words, I continued to live life.

Back when I started treatments, I assumed I would only live six months, as my dad had. I think my attitude toward chemotherapy and how I reacted to it was colored by the fact that I thought I wasn't going to live for very long. Spending several days wallowing in misery every three weeks when you think you are only going to live a few months makes those days more precious. If I had known back then that I was still going to be here over six years after diagnosis, I think I would have been more patient with myself and with how I reacted to the chemo treatments.

Focus on the days I feel good

I hope someday cancer treatments will be developed that don't make us sick or fatigued. In the meantime, I plan to focus on those days when I feel good and just go with the flow on those when I don't. I'll gladly trade a day or two here or there of feeling miserable for still being alive.