Diagnosed last week. Basic basic info re chemotherapy & hair

[Liz1tummypain]

Hi, I only had the breast cancer diagnosis on Thursday so not really enough time for everything to sink in. Have told work and two of my kids ( third is away up a mountain).

The doctor didn't give me an awful lot of info. It is the type of breast cancer that won't respond to tamixofen so the plan seems to be about 4 months chemo, then most likely surgery and then radio therapy. I'm not going to think about anything besides the chemo for now.

Please don't give me too much info. I'm just after some very basic info.

The oncologist will decide whether chemo will be every 3 weeks or a little more regular. How soon ( obviously everyone is different I'm sure), but how soon should I plan on it starting to feel bad?

Trying to think about my work, caring for my mother who has dementia and how would the chemo fit in. Just wondering when I will really need to get other people on board with my mum. Work will sort out a temp I imagine.

Please don't give me too many details. Just a rough idea of how soon it will be til I am losing my energy or whatever the main basic side-effects will be.

Also how soon til my hair would fall out? ( and how cold is the cold thing you can wear?). Not sure if I'm vain but my hair has always been something I felt good about. Hey-ho.

Once again, nothing too detailed please. They gave me lots of leaflets. I started one and had to put it down.

Just to say that not everyone gets constipation - it really depends on the type of chemotherapy you'll be on. Do you know what you're having yet? I had diarrhoea on my regimen (TCHP) so really wouldn't have wanted to have laxatives!

Some other things that might be helpful:

• The charity Breast Cancer Now has a monthly forum for women starting chemo so you can get advice from each other and feel like you're not the only one going through it. (forum.breastcancernow.org/)

• You will be given a bag of medicines to take home after your first treatment - make sure you make notes about what you need to take when as it's quite easy to forget, especially when you're not feeling great. My husband made me a calendar wall chart listing everything I was supposed to take each day which I found very useful and I'd cross them off so knew not to take them again!

• The oncology nurse will go through your symptoms on subsequent visits and they will tailor treatment for you.

• I had UTIs after I'd started chemo - I'd stopped taking HRT after my diagnosis and everything vulval became a bit uncomfortable. Someone I met having chemo told me it was ok to use vaginal estrogen (even though not every doctor will agree, there are guidelines that say it's ok). This wasn't one of the medicines the hospital would arrange (not sure why) so I got my GP to prescribe this and it really helped. I still use it.

• You can ice your hands and feet in a similar way to using a cold cap to try and prevent getting neuropathy. I had some cold sock things which I bought when I had to continue with chemo for over a year after my first six sessions. I couldn't contemplate wearing cold gloves so I used to take a water bottle from the freezer and try and hold it as much as possible. I don't know the evidence but my hands and feet are ok.

Best of luck. Let us know how you get on x