Round 4 - Taxotere

On Tuesday I had my blood work done and saw Dr A. The more I see him the more I like him. Since I’ve had so many side effects from the first cocktail he decided to start me on the Taxotere alone and he will introduce the Herceptin next time if all goes well. This way we can see which drug is causing problems. My blood is good to go but I was horrified to discover that I gained 8 pounds in the last 6 weeks!!! They all assure me that this is from the Dexamethasone (which is a steroid) that I had to take for 5 days after the first three treatments. Now I have to take it the day before, the day of and the day after for this one. It makes my face red and hot from my eyebrows to my chest and it makes my face puffy like a big moon. (Not very attractive!) It also makes you want to eat all the time! It kept me awake the first night so the doctor prescribed some sleeping pills for me. Last night I had the best sleep – 7 hours straight (well one bathroom break and it felt like I was walking on tree stumps to get there). The main thing that the Dexamethasone is supposed to help with is to keep you from retaining fluid in your arms and legs and to help with nausea.

They monitor you very closely when you are getting the Taxotere for the first time. The nurse checks on you every few minutes and they take your blood pressure every 15 minutes. You are to watch for shortness of breath, heart palpitations, skin rash or back ache. Fortunately all went well for me. Another side effect of this one is nail changes – they can turn yellow or orange and get very brittle. To combat that I had to wear cold gel packs on my hands and feet for the two hours of the infusion. You can’t do anything with big oven mitts on your hands so just listened to my ipod to pass the time. They are very up on everything there and sent me home with a Taxotere kit. It had nail hardener, lotion for the dry skin, soft toothbrush and sensitive toothpaste, alcohol free mouthwash and of course more information.

Other than taking a few extra anti-nausea drugs yesterday all has been good! So far everything I’ve eaten yesterday and today hasn’t bothered me. Besides the Dexamethasone I only have to take the other drugs as needed so no more 22 pills a day for me! YAY I don’t know when the side effects of this one are supposed to kick in. I do have some eye tearing but there is also the numbness and tingling in hands joints and muscles, shortness of breath, nausea, red itchy shedding skin, mouth sores among others that can happen. Maybe I will be lucky this time!