My side effects from chemotherapy

During chemotherapy, I did have some side effects. They weren’t atrocious; they definitely got better as I went along. I had four cycles of one type of treatment, and then four cycles of another second drug, and each cycle is two weeks apart. The very first one that I had was definitely the worst, and I think that was a combination of the medicines as well as the apprehension of what was going on and not knowing how my body would react to chemotherapy. Probably the worst side effect I had was nausea, but I had lots of drugs I could take to relieve that nausea when it happened, and so it just became a matter of sort of anticipating when I might be feeling sick and being able to preempt it. I definitely slept more than I was accustomed to. I just kind of felt worn out.

During the chemotherapy itself I felt fine, which was kind of amazing to me. And, actually, afterwards I felt well too. I always had somebody come with me for the treatment just to keep me company, we would go out for dinner afterwards or hang out or whatever, and I really felt fine. Over the next couple of days I was tired and at some points I would feel muscle aches and some bone or joint pain—nothing so bad that I couldn’t go on and do most of the things that I would normally do—but maybe just a little bit less active than I was before starting chemotherapy.