Yesterday was so much fun - NOT! I woke up and felt relatively crappy but said okay, go to part time job and then job interview. Not a big deal. Had breakfast, brushed teeth - which was painful in places, went to part time job, still felt crappy, went home after 2h 45 min, ate lunch, brushed teeth - which really hurt, called dr's office (as this was a symptom they wanted to know about), got a prescription for mouth rinse, felt really crappy, decided if I can't work short days, I can't take a new job even part time so I canceled the interview, still felt really crappy, watched trashy novel made into trashy movie, cat took a nap. Then I realized that maybe I should take my temperature and lo and behold it was 100.1. Hmmm, could be why I felt so crappy all day. Took Tylenol, went for walk, felt crappy, ate dinner, used mouth rinse, whipped Walter's butt at Scrabble (he is still pouting), and my temperature went down....
As part of the lovely side effects your WBC tanks which can cause you to run a fever. Mouth soreness is a side effect of chemo as those are fast growing cells in your mouth. Untreated I guess it can lead to oral thrush (this is a nasty fungus that grows in your mouth normally under control but with chemo or otherwise compromised immune systems can grow out of control*)... How fun is this! It only hurts when I brush my teeth.
Today I took my temperature when I woke up and it was 98.6.
So why do people do chemo if it makes you feel like crap**, lose your hair, and give little roller coaster trips like this? It is to reduce the chance of cancer recurrence. You look at the relative decrease in recurrence of cancer. If you are given a 5% chance of recurrence in the next five or ten years without treatment, the benefit of chemo, depending on your type of cancer, is somewhere between 25-50% reduction, depending on who you ask and the type of cancer, of that 5% chance or 1.25 - 2.5%. If you are given a 30% chance of recurrence without treatment, the reduction risk is then 7.5 - 15%. The higher your risk of recurrence the greater the benefit or risk reduction of chemo. Yes there are some nasty long term side effects of chemo - congestive heart failure 0.5%, leukemia 1-2%, etc. - which make it less beneficial, so you really have to look at an individual's relative risk reduction. For me, I was told its about a 15-20% risk reduction. So by making myself so sick (and having such a wonderful roller coaster ride), I am making a big reduction in my risk of recurrence. Hormone therapy will cause another similar reduction. That adventure starts with radiation probably in December or January and will last for five years.
*I am not a doctor. I just look this stuff up on line to figure out what it is.
** crap or crappy is another technical term for overall sense of well being
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