This Week is Resting Week!

Chemotherapy treatment usually involve more than one drug. In my case, it's Cisplatin and Gemcitabine. The treatment cycle is 21 days: Day 1, both drugs will be infused. Day 8, only Gemcitabine is infused, then today, Day 15, nothing is infused (and it's also called "resting week") and next week, after another blood check and consultation with the doctors, the Second Cycle (same infusion program) will take place. There will be a total of 4 cycles (each 21 days) of treatments.

Please do take note that treatment is different for individual of different types (and stages) of cancer and the choice of drugs are very much different by different oncologists' preferences, as there are more than 30 commonly used drugs. As a result, the side effects and reaction to treatment are very much different as well. In my case, and you may recall after careful and in-depth discussion with the oncologists on the treatment options (and thanks again to their open-mindedness during the discussion), so far, I am doing fine/good! As I am infused with Cisplatin, I don't have hair loss (and therefore I don't need to shave my hair). The constipation was there for Day 1-3, due to the anti-vomiting drug (Ondansetron), it returned to normal starting Day 4 and since then poo-poo comes everyday. Nausea is there on a daily basis, and it hits you from time to time during the day, but it's already much better than what I expected, and instead of taking western medicine, I used the Chinese salty plum as the anti-nausea agent and it works quite well so far. Fatigue (exhaustion) is the only issue I experienced rather frequent during the day, and I decided to manage it through change of my "resting time", i.e. I will rest (lie down) no matter I am tired or not, and I break down the rest into smaller rests, one in the late morning, one in the late afternoon, and then try to sleep through the night non-stop (try to have no waking up in between).

No one knows your body better than you! You must take good care of yourself and try to listen to your body throughout the whole treatment period. Always keep in mind that each individual is indeed different and they all react differently. The better you can communicate with your own body, the more care you can exercise to your own body, you are in better position to recover! More often than not, Cancer survivors are more health cautious than normal people and in fact, I usually find cancer survivors have a much better and stronger attitude towards life. Meantime, I would certainly suggest everyone of us to take good care of our own body, as you don't need cancer to teach/remind you how to take good care of yourself. Or do you?

Start today, it's never too late! Take good care of yourself!