Taxotere is known to have some severe side effects including allergic reactions. To combat the allergic reactions and nausea, patients are placed on steroids a minimum of 24 hours ahead of time. This will happen with each of my next two cycles of Taxotere treatments.
The steroids certainly were an experience. They made me very hyper. A lot of things got done around the house while I was under their influence. At best, I got three hours of sleep nightly for the two days I was on the drugs. Then there was the crash the next day after the steroids were flushed out of my system.
The crash felt like a hangover, but with drugs instead of alcohol. It was a very strange sensation. I get to have these same steroids two more times in the subsequent Taxotere chemo sessions to come. I can expect similar behavior while taking the drug in the next two-chemo cycles.
The infusion of Taxotere was different than FEC. Patients are infused, observed for allergic reactions, infused again, and then observed for an hour after the injection is completed. This is done only on the first treatment to monitor allergic reactions, and is not repeated with the subsequent Taxotere treatments.
With Taxotere, patients are issued ice gel packs for their hands and feet to constrict the capillaries in these areas. The numbing cold gel packs limit the amount of chemo coming into the capillaries to minimize hand and foot complications. For comfort, the cold was offset with heated blankets and hot tea.
With Taxotere, there is also an increased risk of heart palpitations. To monitor heart function, patients are hooked up to a blood pressure machine the whole time they are infused. The machine periodically reads blood pressure levels, which become part of your patient history for subsequent treatments. My heart function remained healthy and is expected to behave similarly in the next two Taxotere cycles.
Taxotere unlike FEC, does not have the same side effects with nausea and vomiting. In this regard, it is quite tolerable. There has been an increase in acidity levels in my body with my stomach becoming more sensitive with this new chemotherapy. My appetite is still nil.
I now have a constant acid-sour taste in my mouth. Dry mouth has also been more severe with Taxotere, affecting more severely overnight. I have to hydrate my mouth four to five times a night so that I can sleep more comfortably.
As well, Taxotere will rid my body of any remaining hair that FEC did not shed. I can expect that it will strip the hair on my legs, arms, eyebrows, eyelids, face, and head. Chemo fatigue is increasing, and simple daily tasks are getting harder to do.
There has also been a further attack on my white blood cell counts with Taxotere, which has resulted in two different infections and more frequent nose bleeds. Overall, Taxotere has been less impacting on nausea and vomiting, but it has been dramatically more difficult in dealing with the side effects that have come with it.
I only have two more cycles of Taxotere. I’m two-thirds through the chemotherapy phase of my treatment. I will get through the tough times with Taxotere with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
I have always had a high threshold for pain.
I’ve had my spine fused for scoliosis, broke my sacrum, have had multiple surgeries, and got through natural childbirth twice without medication.
With cancer, the white blood cell booster medication’s side effects attack one’s muscles and joints, and are known to cause pain in the legs, hips, and back. The blood booster injections hurt, as do the blood thinners. There is also a burning pain that comes with the release of the blood thinner serum into my body. On occasion, I experience twinges of pain in the tissues and muscles surrounding my mastectomy site as it continues to heal from surgery.
I know pain.
I recognize when pain is upon me because of the restlessness that comes with it. It takes a pretty strong prescription to ease pain when it comes upon me, as my body can be resistant to medication.
When I met with my oncologist prior to my first Taxotere infusion, I was told that I could expect bone pain, especially in my legs. If it was only pain in my legs, that would be easy to handle.
Taxotere pain is different than all of the other forms of pain I’ve had in life. It has its own way of creating pain and testing my toughness. There are good pain days where I experience low-grade pain throughout the day. Then there are bad pain days when I feel like I’m 80 years old because moving is difficult. On these days, walking is slow, deliberate, and focused. Climbing stairs is especially trying.
The introduction of the Taxotere chemotherapy cocktail last week has become a new experience in pain management. There is more pain than previously experienced with my white cell booster medication, and it resides in new places including my bones.
I am learning to live with and accept the pain that comes with Taxotere. It’s part of the cancer journey and part of being treated for it. I now live with low-grade chronic pain in my joints and bones as well as a low-grade persistent headache, both of which have come with Taxotere. Cancer is not giving me pain; it’s the Taxotere and Neupogen drugs that I’m being treated with to fight cancer that are the contributors.
With Taxotere, there are days when each step I take is painful because the muscles in my ankles, calves, knees, hips, and hamstrings hurt. The tibia bones in my legs hurt, my hipbones hurt, my knee joints hurt, and there is fleeting pain in the radius and ulna bones in my lower arms. The degree of pain can escalate to brief bouts of throbbing or searing pain in my joints and bones.
The pain levels vary throughout the day, but tend to be worse in the evening. Tylenol Three’s offer no comfort, so out came the narcotics I was hoping to avoid. I’m trying not to use them as they render me unable to drive because of a fuzzy head, wreak havoc on my digestive system, and can be addictive.
Supposedly, Taxotere pain starts around day four (bang on with me) and lasts four to seven days. The pain was the worst on day four and day seven of this treatment cycle. I’m curious to see if the remaining two Taxotere treatments elevate or extend the pain as more of the chemotherapy absorbs in my body.
I don’t want anyone’s pity for the pain I’m suffering, just patience with me and an understanding of what I’m going through. There are days when Taxotere makes your world topsy-turvy.
Undaunted, I push through the pain and continue to walk on this cancer treatment journey with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
I’ve hit turbulence with Taxotere. What a ride it has been.
Today is Day 10 of my fourth treatment cycle; I’m just starting to feel better. As I’ve been told, the bounce back time from each chemotherapy cycle increases with each additional treatment. An extra bounce back day has been added to this cycle.
During my Taxotere treatment, my nurse Crystal told me that this drug is prone to reducing white blood cell counts more dramatically than FEC. I believed that because I was already on white blood cell booster medication, I would get through this new cycle of chemo more easily as my blood counts are being boosted. Unfortunately, this would not be true.
On Sunday, I woke up “feeling off”. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I should have been able to recognize the symptoms of low white cell blood counts as I’ve had them before. Naively, I thought that my white cell counts would help me to stay healthy because I have been taking blood cell booster injections.
By Sunday evening I wasn’t getting better. When I went to brush my teeth, I found a white coating inside my mouth. I call to my oncologist’s office the next day resulted in a diagnosis of a throat infection called Thrush--a bacterial mouth infection caused by chemotherapy and low white blood cell counts (a side effect I wasn’t warned about). An anti-fungal prescription to clear the infection was issued.
I went to my Art Therapy class on Monday morning continuing to feel out of sorts with some joint and muscle pain, but pushed past the pain to be in class. By dinner hour that day, I was feeling sick and starting to spike a fever in addition to escalating joint and muscle pain.
With chemo, you’re told that if you are spiking a fever of 38° (after 5:00 p.m. or on weekends) you need to report immediately to the emergency room of your treatment hospital. I called the oncologist on call to check in, and was told that if the fever persisted at 38° for an hour or more then I should take a trip to the emergency ward.
My sister Jen, who is a registered nurse, stayed with me to monitor the fever. My fever bounced just above 38° or just below it for seven hours. Chills and shivers took turns with heat and sweat. It seemed that another infection was brewing and putting me in a dangerous position because of low white blood cell counts and an inability to fight the infection.
As I was already taking pain medication that had acetaminophen in it, when the fever climbed to 38.3° at 11:30 p.m. we made the decision to go to Emergency. It was a trip that I was dreading. Intuitively knew it would not be a short visit from past history with ER. I packed a care bag, which included my daily injections in the event that the visit to the emergency ward would be a long one.
The ER trip matched my dread and intuitive hunch on the length of stay. It was yet another 11-hour visit to emergency. With it came the usual cast of characters waiting to be seen, many appearing to have non-emergent conditions that a family doctor or walk in clinic could have assisted with.
When cancer patients present to emergency wards with a fever, the protocol is that they should be taken in as soon as possible. They are to be placed in a single bed treatment room to isolate them from other sick people in the emergency ward, because of their lowered immunity and inability to fight infection.
That didn’t happen until 7.5 hours later as all of the beds were full all night in the emergency ward. In the absence of an isolated room, I was issued a facemask to help block germs circulating among the patients who were in the waiting room with me. It was a long and tiring wait. I didn’t get any sleep overnight.
After my daily 7:00 a.m. injections, I was finally able to get into a solitary treatment room. In all, the assessment took nearly three hours by the emergency room physician (bouncing between patients) who first apologized for the long wait.
As it turns out, another infection seemed to be in the works somewhere in my body, but lab tests could not pinpoint where. Culture samples were also taken to confirm what kind of infection was building; the results are yet to come.
When a cancer patient has a fever, it is assumed that there is an infection brewing somewhere. No chances are taken to find out what kind of infection is bubbling. The ER physician consulted with my oncologist, resulting in me being immediately put on two types of potent broad-spectrum antibiotics to eliminate the infection.
Within 24 hours, I was put on three new medications. I’m beginning to feel like a walking pharmacy with chemo drugs, blood thinners, blood cell boosters, painkillers, an anti-fungal throat rinse, and anti-biotics all being housed in my body.
Taxotere has been a tough trip in this cancer fight. There are two more chemo treatments with this drug. I continue to persevere in my treatments with Strength, Courage, and Determination.