Oncology & Nursing Team

Before you are due to start chemo, you will meet your Oncologist. He/she will tell you exactly what chemo regime you will be having. They will also be obliged to tell you of every single side effect known to man kind that could possibly happen to you during chemo or post chemo. To be quite honest, I would let these go over your head. Your head will already be filled with a minefield of information that you will not remember simply from being diagnosed in the first place. Make a list of questions that you want to ask your Oncologist. I had forgotten details from my diagnosis and asked questions about that.
The best advice that myself and Amanda have always agreed on...DO NOT compare side effects and symptoms with anybody else. You are not the same as the next person. Amanda has pretty much suffered from every side effect listed. I haven't. I actually feel that I've 'sailed' through the chemo with minimal side effects. Yes I've lost head hair, this was a cert. Yes, I've been tired. I had continual sickness for 13 hours after chemo no1 and that was it. I had nausea after chemo's 2 & 3 but this only lasted a couple of days tops.
Keep a diary and fill it in on a daily basis. Look back at your previous side effects and be prepared for pretty much the same each cycle.
You will meet up with your Oncologist before each session of chemo. I would have an appointment with mine on a Tuesday before my Friday chemo session. They will discuss any side effects since your last treatment. Anything at all, tell them and they will prescribe medication that could help. This will be waiting for you and given to you on your following chemo session.
The nursing staff on the chemo ward: One word (bar for the odd misery face-there will always be one)...absolutely outstanding, respectful, caring, wonderful people.
You will be taken into a lovely seating area and you will be seated on a very comfy reclining chair. You will have other patients around you. Talk to them and it really does pass the time.
It is a bad enough experience when you have to have that first cannula in your hand/arm, it's the unknown, the realisation that you are an official Cancer patient. It was at this point, at my very first chemo session that I realised, daft as it sounds, that this was serious stuff. The nurses are amazing and put your mind at ease. They will sit with you and talk to you all the way through the treatment. They will explain everything as they take you through the whole process.
The chemo ward itself was lovely. Take a friend or family member. There are coffee and tea making facilities, they offer you meals or sandwiches.
These nursing staff do an amazing job and I often wonder how they do it, I have only been for 6 chemo sessions, these wonderful people have 1000 patients a week passing through the unit who all have Cancer and are enduring treatment of some nature. They truly are Angels.
Debbie.