rhartong

I have a potentially fatal kind of cancer, peritoneal surface malignancy, and my approach -- when I've done something obnoxious -- is to say, "Fuck you. I've got cancer." It allows me to get away with all kinds of stuff I was never able to do in the past. ;-)

I'm just coming off 9 months of IV chemo. It really depends on what kind of drugs you get (which depends on what kind of cancer you have.) I had a regimen they cal FOLFIRI (it's a combination of 3 different drugs) that's commonly used for colon cancer (although that's not what I've got.) The FOLFIRI made me feel weak and I lost my appetite in a big way (lost 65 pounds while on chemo). It also gave me diarrhea that was only controllable by taking serious drugs that had their own side effects. Along with the diarrhea came a lot of abdominal pain. So... more drugs to treat the pain. There was a lot of fatigue. I was lucky in that I didn't have much nausea. Between the diarrhea, the fatigue, and the pain I didn't get out of the house much. All things considered, chemo is pretty much just as unpleasant as you may have heard.