Managing Treatment Side Effects

Side effects, like treatment programs, vary from person to person. They can be unpleasant, but most often they are temporary, and most are treatable. Typical side effects for the most common cancer treatments include:

Surgery: During surgery, complications may include bleeding, organ damage and organ dysfunction. After surgery, side effects include pain and infection.

Radiation therapy: Fatigue, nausea and eating problems, mouth sores, localized hair loss in the area of radiation, skin irritation, and dryness.

Chemotherapy: Nausea and vomiting, hair and nail loss, fatigue, eating problems, mouth sores, infection, bleeding or easy bruising, low white blood cell count, and anemia (low red blood cell count).

Coping with Common Treatment Side Effects

• Fatigue
• Hair, Nail and Skin Issues
• Infections
• Lymphedema
• Mouth Sores
• Nausea and Vomiting, and Eating Problems
• Neuropathy
• Neutropenia
• Pain

As with all drug treatment, the risks must be weighed against the benefits. In most patients with cancer, the potentially toxic effects of chemotherapy are justified in order to get the cancer into remission. This is not always the case, and you should tell your doctor whether you’ve ever had any type of heart condition, including high blood pressure. You should also inform him/her about any radiation treatment to the chest area that you might have received in the past.

Fatigue

• To avoid fatigue, plan your days so you have time to rest, especially around treatment times. Save your energy for activities that are most important to you and ask for help with the rest.

Juggling Parenting and Chemotherapy

I thought raising children was pretty challenging enough, "Now you're telling me I have to fight for my life? and raise my child."  One of the hardest things I had to face was being a parent who's trying to get well. "In order for me to be a good mom I had to fight this other battle, but that battle was getting in the way of me being able to do the things I need to be a good mom.

Researchers estimated that 562,000 children are living with a parent who is in the early -- and most intense -- phases of cancer treatment. Cancer can be a very stressful experience for children in the household and often, the parent might not even know the extent of the strain that is put on the child. Past research has found that kids often don't speak up and say that they're struggling, trying not to overload or worry their parents. Even after loved ones go into remission, the fears about cancer can stay with a child.  My son was only 2 at the time I got diagnosed, he still has questions.  He is now 5 and asked me the other day if he has cancer-- that was really hard for me. I had to sit him down and explain how mommy is better now and reassure him that does not have cancer.

Though cancer is often thought of as a disease that strikes later in life, new research shows that 18 percent of newly diagnosed cancer patients are parents to one or more minor children. Of these patients, nearly a third of them are caring for children under the age of six.  This means that 2.85 million children in the United States are living with a parent who is battling or has survived cancer.

Whether you are newly diagnosed, or facing a recurrance, parenting through your diagnosis can prove quite challenging.  It is important to open up healthy lines of communication with your young children  through your cancer experience.   Furthermore it is important to seek a strong support system, whether it be through family, friends, support groups, etc.  I highly recommend and encourage proactive preparation. As a single parent it was vital for me to put things in place before I actually started treatement and it made a big difference. I wanted to make sure my treatment would not disrupt my son's daily routine and keep his life as normal as possible. My family stepped up in a big way and took turns coming by to take care of my son so I could rest and focus on healing.