MARIJUANA?! | CANCER & CHEMO

Just wanted to give you encouragement through this bump in your life road.

I'm 55 years old and have had 4 different cancers, the last one being Hodgkin's Lymphoma. My last chemotherapy was February 5, 2019. At 29 yrs old I had breast cancer, 2007 I had cervical cancer and 2009 I had a tumor wrapped around my lumbar spine. All these cancers were independent from each other. Basically, I have a disposition to getting cancer. I don't know why I survived them and others don't.

Chemotherapy treatment is awful and frustrating because as it accumulates in our bodies those little things we find to help us deal with side effects are short term. It forces us to find other things and methods at the same time your fatigue increases. So your more fatigued and what you did to deal with certain side effects are not working which increases the stress to your body. 85-90% in getting through treatment is attitude!

My personality doesn't like seeing others suffer. My treatment was in what they called the Infusion Room. It's a room with about 30 recliners with IV infusion machines. This was my third time in my life recieving chemotherapy treatment. I decided that I was going to be more positive and engage others in positive conversation instead of concentrating on my symptoms. I engaged the nurses to join in, told funny stories and one by one others were engaging in the conversations. Patients from other pods (section of ten chairs) were wanting to join in. By the time my treatments were coming to an end I was promised a private infusion chair in the broom closet because I stirred the other to laugh out loud. Lol. I told my nurses that they'll miss when my treatments end. Lol. I go every 6 weeks to get my port flushed because my doctor feels more comfortable keeping the port in for the first year after treatment ended. The nurses all remember the hoopla I raised and actually miss it. We're all stuck there for hours at a time and everyone were always in a somber mood focusing on their symptoms.

Another thing I would concentrate on was getting lots of calories in. Calories are the body's energy. I didn't restrict myself of anything. I ate sweets, meats, vegetables, fruits, pastas etc. Some research claims that cancers love sugar and certain drugs piggybacks on sugars. Every cookie, cake, milkshake, strawberry, kiwifruit, salad, carrots etc I ate I thought I was giving my chemotherapy drugs a ride to my cancer cells! I don't suggest you keep that type of diet once you've completed your treatment and in remission. AND NEVER EVER FORGET YOUR WATER INTAKE. Water helps flush out your kidneys of the chemotherapy drugs.

My treatment included an anti nausea med, diuretic, prednisone and glucose along with the ABVD drugs. The treatment lasted for 4-5 hours depending if the lab was backed up in mix the cocktail of drugs.

As far as your dry facial skin find creams/lotions that have hyaluronic acid in them. Hyaluronic acid helps your skin cells produce moisture and also retains moisture. You don't need high end skincare products. CeraVe and Cetaphil have a whole line of face serums, lotions and moisturizers that contain hyaluronic acid. Both brands also have great body creams for extra dry skin. Drug stores carry these brands. Our skin gets dry not only because it's a fast reproducing cell but because we also lose our facial and body hairs so our follicles aren't producing oils. When I was younger I had breakouts but never during chemotherapy treatments. My skin was smooth and free of breakouts.

I hope my experiences encourage you and eliminates some stress and frustrations that come with chemotherapy. I wish you the best of luck not only in treatment but in your doctoring. May God bless you with His strength, joy and peace.

Durbin poison strain – thank you!

Thank you. 🙂

Holy jesus – the cancer cells can mutate and become accustomed to the chemo therapy.
Fuuuuuuuu. i just got diagnosed myself.