Wednesday 24 August 2011

Video Diary 5: A Week After Chemo (ABVD)

It's been a week since I had my first chemo and I've started to notice slight side effects. I have stage 2 Hodgkin Lymphoma and this is my fifth Video Diary from Weds 17th August, 2011.

4 comments:

  1. AFAIK in the UK most yogurts are pasteurised. If pasteurised isn't good enough check out UHT.

    In theory your NHS dietitian should have all the info you need. Assuming you have an NHS dietitian:)

    Chris

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  2. Looking good Kat. I'm pretty sure you can eat anything - I asked my oncologist about what to eat/what not to eat and basically he told me to eat as normal. I wrote a blog about food recently (Dang) - you might want to take a look at it. I'm sure I wrote about it in one of my earlier posts too, when I was just starting the chemo.
    Stay strong - we will get through this!
    PS. I've been eating yoghurt and have had no problems...

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  3. Hey Kat,

    I thought I'd share some encouraging words with you.

    I went through Hodgkin's recently. I was diagnosed in January 2009 and I've been in complete remission since September the same year. Received 6 months of chemo (ABVD) in total.

    Other than the temporary side effects during chemo it hasn't changed my life, not at all. I lost some hair during the treatments but it's all back now and there are no signs that this has ever happened to me. Most people haven't even noticed and they would not believe had I told them.

    You are absolutely correct, there is a very high cure rate for this. My doctor has re-evaluated my condition after the 1st month (2 chemos) to see whether the treatment worked and indeed it did: almost all symptoms were gone despite the fact that I was only at the 1/6th of the treatment at the time!

    My diagnosis was stage IV/B as opposed to your stage II so you are at a very early stage which helps a lot.

    Would there be any problems there is a new drug that was approved in the US two days ago by the FDA:
    http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20110819/fda-approves-new-drug-for-lymphoma. This is big news because it's been unprecedented for more than 35 years since ABVD was discovered. I'm sure you won't need this but I thought I'd share just in case. Your doctor most certainly knows about it. It's still extremely new and probably not available in Europe but there are options now at least. There is also stem cell transplant which I'm sure you won't need either just as I didn't. Staying on the chemo is the best you can do today as the initial treatment.

    Stay as cool as you are now, do not think of yourself as "sick", this is a temporary condition and everything will be back to normal in several months. Just show up for the treatments, that's all you need to do. Stay hydrated and eat as much and whatever you wish. I discovered the more the better because I lost some weight even though I had better appetite between treatments than ever before ;) Unfortunately my weight is back to normal since then :-)

    I don't think yoghurt would be a problem. However I think you mentioned dentist: make sure to mention to your dentist that you're on chemo because your platelet count may be low and certain things may not be possible that result in bleeding.

    I just started following you on Twitter, just in case, so if you have any questions feel free to follow back and DM me for my contacts unless blogspot shares it with you automatically.

    I wish you all the best! I'm sure there will be no issues, don't worry.

    Norbert

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  4. Hey Kat, looks like you are getting lots of good advice & support from friends and family - the best their is. Have you had contact with "Maggie's Centre" (not sure where the apostrophe is)? They offer support and information to those with cancer - they might be worth contacting. Counselling is a good idea .too - I did that and it was great to have someone else to talk things through with. Take care, Annette

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