3rd Dose of Chemo

14 Apr 2008, Mon - 3rd dose of chemo (herceptin 280mg, docetaxel 90mg, carboplatin 700mg)

This time round, I took the full dose in one go as my onco felt that I could handle it and that it would be more effective.

Most people I spoke to usually felt the side-effects immediately, but I always seemed to have a delayed effect. I only started feeling the side-effects on Thursday, 3 days after I had the drip.

I was expecting to feel the effects because of the full dose, but was surprised to find that I was still fine on Tuesday and Wednesday. I had stayed with my mum for 2 to 3 weeks after my discharge from SGH and was now back in my own home. I could still go marketing, which is less than 10 minutes walk away from my home. I had been thinking it wasn't so bad after all.

I spoke too soon. Come Thursday, and I was so tired, so lethargic, and my mouth had a very strong metallic taste. The carboplatin contains platinum. Anything that I put into my mouth tasted like metal. Even when I drank water, it felt like I was drinking some metallic stuff or drinking out of a rusty container. It felt terrible when I burped. I was hungry, but I didn't feel like eating anything. It wasn't that I had no appetite. It's just that I hated the taste of food. The only thing I found that I could swallow without such a bad taste was ice cream. So I had quite a lot of it.

I was so lethargic that I was sleeping most of the time. Food wise, other than ice cream, I tried to force myself to eat whatever I could swallow. Most times, I only managed a few mouthfuls of what I had prepared.

The effects lasted about 7 days. I was really not in the best of moods. It was manageable when I was on the smaller weekly dose. The metallic taste was there but it was bearable. But now that I have felt the full force of a full dose of chemo, I really hated it. The lethargy, the metallic, in addition to the aches and pains, the rashes and itchiness, for that moment, life had suddenly felt miserable.

Fortunately, this time round, my mouth didn't break out in sores. I had it once when I had the third portion of my 1st dose. It was awful. My gums hurt. I had ulcers on the gums, tongue and mouth lining. I could only swallow and couldn't chew. Even eating porridge was a problem. I had to take soupy stuff most of the time.