Prepping for Chemo Life!

Once diagnosed and told that I will be having chemotherapy in a few weeks, the next thing I did, got into the action with what needed to be done before I start. So I have put together a list of things that I did to ensure when chemotherapy started, I was ready! (I will also add to this throughout my journey and add anything else that I learned through this process).

DO NOT READ ANYTHING ON GOOGLE UNLESS IT IS FROM MCMILLAN/NHS OR FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN THROUGH IT!!

Honestly – the CRAP that you read on the internet will scare the shit out of you! Statistics that are wildly untrue and could be completely irrelevant to your type of cancer or treatment. Just DON’T DO IT!.

GET JABBED

Your doctor will explain if you need to have any jabs before you start. For me, I had to have the Covid Booster vaccination, but some people may also need Flu jabs etc if you need them. The longer you delay in having these, the more delayed your chemotherapy will be.

HAIR

The biggest area of concern for so many people (other than survival) is losing their hair. It can be a sensitive subject and the thing that people want to hold onto the most. For me, my hair is/was my identity. I have never been a very girly girl, (barely own any makeup) so my hair was the thing that made me a woman I suppose. All of my friends and family thought that I would have a huge issue will losing my hair, BUT, I wasn’t.

In my mind, for the next 6 months, I am going to be using every ounce of my energy trying to fight the drugs in my system, so they do not do me more harm, I did not have the energy to waste on keeping my hair – but – everyone is different. There are ways to prolong the loss of your hair during chemotherapy, such as wearing cold caps while having treatment, but these can cause severe headaches and I just didn’t want to put myself through it. Also, the thought of my hair falling out, while it was just under a metre long, I think would be terrifying. Waking up a finding long clumps of hair on my pillow…..no thank you!

So, I thought I would put my long hair to good use. I knew it was going to fall out, so why not give it to a good cause. On the 10th of December, I put up a post on social media, explaining that I am going to be chopping off my hair, and donating it to the Little Princess Trust. This is a charity that creates wigs for children who have gone through, and is going through cancer, to make them feel like normal child again! By the 17th of December, I had raised just over £2000 for the charity, and I had chopped off my long locks. I was able to donate over 50cm of hair which will go towards making these wigs for these children.

It felt great, and I didn’t care that I now had short hair. This was now something that I just didn’t have to worry about.

EYEBROWS

As previously mentioned, I am not a girly girl. Never have been either, but my friends are!! As an early Xmas present, they paid for me to have my eyebrows tattooed! This is not something I would ever have thought of doing – but OH MY GOD! What a difference this has made! Not only do they look amazing, but they are also going to stop me from looking like Uncle Fester / Lord Voldemort when my hair does fall out!

CLOTHES SHOPPING

Now, we are all hopeful that we will be able to be up and about every day, going out and acting normal. This is not the case. Buy lots and lots of comfy clothes and pyjamas. Unfortunately, one of the sides effects of chemo, is sweating a lot and also, you do start to smell, so you will most likely be wearing things just once before washing them……just a heads up on that!

SPARE ROOM

Laura and I only moved into our property in June, and we had spent the last few months fixing lots of issues, and also renovating the property. The spare room was kind of last to be done, as at the moment it was more of a dumping ground! However, with the way the world is, we can never be too sure we are not going to catch something while out shopping, etc. So, we decided to get the spare room ready (we just bought a bed) so that if Laura did fall unwell, she would be able to go sleep in that room, and not allow me to catch any bug which could then affect my chemo. We also bought a recliner chair for our main room, as I cannot imagine spending the next 6 months lying down in bed if I was feeling unwell. That bed should be for sleep – so we got the recliner so I can go somewhere else if feeling poorly but not wanting to migrate downstairs!

CLEANING

Now, nothing I am going to say here means that I live in a dirty house. Far from it. I live in a clean home, that is mostly tidy, other than the fact that I can never be bothered to do the washing up, so sometimes that does pile up! (Holly, I am thinking of you as I write this, Ha!) But before I started chemotherapy, we made a conscious effort to go round the whole house and do a proper spring clean. I mean, hands and knees, sofa out, scrubbing, skirting boards, etc. Now, if someone you do this every month anyway, you have too much time on your hands and need to get a hobby!! But in all seriousness, once you have started having chemo, your immune system will be weaker, so just out of precaution, we decided to do another huge clean, which then means going forward it will always be a lot easier to clean again while going through treatment. (I can now imagine my mum reading this thinking, she only cleans under the sofa less than once a month……..disgusting!) 😊

SEE FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Honestly – just do it! Do it safely but do it. Once you start treatment, you are going to be so much more conscious about going out, catching COVID, or just catching a common cold.

Before my treatment, I went to dinner with friends, I went to dinner with work friends, I had people over my house for dinner, saw family, etc. But we did it safely. I didn’t go inside any busy pubs, and if I did go to the pub, I sat outside in the cold wrapped up warm. If people came to my house, they had to do an LFT test before they arrived, we had a lot of the windows open, and I didn’t hug them.

Do what you can to stay safe, before and during chemo – but please do not just stay in your house, especially if you live alone. Go for walks with people if you are up for it – and if not, let people come see you. It is good for your mental health, but it also helps your friends understand what you are going through. Never go through this alone.

I had a friend contact me in January, and he explained that he struggled during Christmas, because he was worried about me, but didn’t feel like he could call me, because everyone else would be. There are so many people out there who care for me (by the way I am generally shocked because I am a bit of a knob), but they can’t see my day today, and they will sit and worry that I am curled up in a ball crying my eyes out, or that I am throwing up every 5seconds and there is nothing they can do. So speak to friends, let them see you, and let them know how you are getting on. And if you are NOT coping, all the more reason for you to make them aware.
People like to help. Good people anyway. They want to feel useless because at the moment, there is nothing they feel they can do to help. So let them grab some shopping, let them go out for a walk with you. 99% of the time it is because they genuinely want to see you, not just because they feel they HAVE to.