I must say, this Taxol chemo is much better than my A/Cs. However, it's not without its own problems. Some of them kinda rough. The biggest side effects to Taxol are bone pain (and we know how I feel about bone pain) and neuropathy- as in tingling and loss of nerve feeling in your fingers and toes. You can also have problems with your nails. Within two days I had all of these. Granted, I didn't feel like I was going to curl up and die. I was, however, unable to walk one night. The bone pain is pretty intense. I feel it in my back, which I'm used to, but I was surprised to feel it so much in my legs. My shins, ankles and feet were wracked with pain. My legs buckled a few times and it hurt to move. Thankfully, the worst of it was over within a few days. I am left now with residual pain and a lot of tingling. It's like my feet and fingers are constantly asleep. It feels funny. And annoying. I feel kinda stupid cuz a day or so after chemo I was going on and on about how easy it was and how I was fine. I am- sort of. I just need to adjust to a whole slew of other issues. It's kind of hard to type- I can't feel my fingers and at the same time they hurt. Sort of difficult to do my job when I can't type well. I have spellcheck on overdrive with my typos. The wierdest thing so far had been my nails. The last couple of days my nails have started to hurt badly- like a slammed all of them in a car door and they could fall off at any minute. Can't drum my fingernails on my desk, can't open a can of Coke, it hurts too much. Bummer.
But I don't feel like I'm going to puke. And I have very nice drugs. It's amazing how your mood improves when you don't feel like you're going to puke your guts out. Even not walking seems not too bad.
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Hey Courtney,
I don't know WHEN you were going through thhis, or if you still are, as have not read all your posts.
On "taxodeath," as we called it, I lost all my nails - hands and feet. Fingernails grew back pretty quick. Toe nails slower. Oh, and it's TWO YEARS past Taxol for me and my big toe nails STILL haven't come all the way back, the buggers....
I called up both my chemo nurse (may the Goddess bless THAT woman!) as well as my onc doc, and told them I felt like I had ground glass inside my feet an couldn't walk, so I know PRIMO what you say.
Already I had had problems with nerve damage to feet from a Neurosurgeon who did a spinal fusion on me, and left me partially paralyzed (this was six mos B4 being dx with BC - fun, fun...), and went straight from hospital to rehab spinal cord injury unit to learn how to walk again.
And isn't it THE most messed-up to try and explain that you both can't feel your fingers and they also hurt like they are on fire? How can the two exist. My hands now have neuropathy all the time, sometimes worse than others.
When real bad, I just don't use my hands all day - am now on Disability, can't work due to the cancer and the back - and I drop things ALL the time.
Really just wanted you to know that the numb/hurt isn't in your head, but most people get it, and since you are so young, make sure to stay in touch with your onc., as Taxol is new, and while I was on a Clinical Trial, don't know if you were. For the rest of my life, I'll be watched over, since, hey, they really DON'T know the long-term side effects. OH JOY....
BTW, I LOVE your titles for your blogs - very creative! :-)
BLESSED BE SISTER-IN-KIND,
connie (conniec@cove.com)
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