Top 6 Tips For Cancer Patients And Chemotherapy Beginners

Cancer is a very scary word. It is the disease that most people fear the most, and know the less about. If there is something that we all do know about cancer is that getting rid of it is not easy at all. The treatment in most cases is worse then the disease, and the part that people dread the most about it.

In late 2020, I was diagnosed with Lymphoma stage 2. As of writing this, I am still going through Chemotherapy. I needed 12 treatments (6 Cycles) of Chemo, one treatment every 2 weeks.

For me, Chemo is a real bitch. For some it takes 3 days to recover from a treatment, for others only one day, and for the unlucky ones, a week or a week and a half. Guess what group I belong to. Yup. 8 days of sheer awfulness. It started with nausea and sea sickness, not eating for the first 3 days, extreme fatigue, headaches, heat waves and shivers, pain in the teeth and cold sores on the tongue.

After dealing with all that for the first few times, I gathered a few helpful tips for someone who is just starting this kind of process. For every person the experience of chemotherapy is different. It is so individual that I cannot really say for a fact that every hack in this list will help, but this is what I found from going through ABVD. This is my experience, and I hope it can help anyone who is going through something similar to what I went through.

*Although we know chemotherapy is not the only treatment and that there are other really aggressive ways to treat the disease, Chemotherapy s the only option that I had, and why I am writing this story.*

Tip # 1 - Bowl For The Nausea And a Cold Towel.

Nausea might be the most common side effects of chemotherapy, and patients are often prescribed more than one medicine for it (I personally, were prescribed 3). But it is easy to say the word nausea and not really understand what it means. It is more than a stomach ache, it's the feeling of almost vomiting. Sea sickness (although most cases it's accompanied by stomach ache), and most of the time vomiting is the nausea's date for the evening.

In my case, I didn't have as much vomiting as I suspected I would have, but never the less. A cancer patient spend most of their time in bed (or the hospital if they are a child), and sometimes cannot have the strength to go to the bathroom when they need to vomit. I found that it was best if I had some kind of a bowl next to my bed, just in case it will catch me by surprise. I used a mixing bowl and put a plastic bag in it, but you do you. The one thing that they don't tell you about the nausea is that it will make your mouth watery, and your spit hard to swallow. In general, the whole teeth and mouth situation becomes very unpleasant. At this point the bowl comes in handy, where you can just spit out the awful taste in your mouth (this is the real hack here). To top it with another useful tool that people might thought of before me but I think it's utterly genius; use a wet handkerchief or a small towel to dab your face in every once in a while. When you are lying in bed with the chemicals in your blood, this will feel like the gods blessed touch.

I keep those two (the bowl and the wet towel) near my bed at all times during the side effects week. I hope this will help you as well.

Tip # 2 - Teeth And Mouthwash

If we are talking about the mouth area lets talk about teeth hygiene during chemo. Your teeth and whole mouth area hygiene is going to go down severely. It's already an easy place for bacteria to set and we all know that when you're getting chemo you are in large risk of infections. That's why (I'm guessing) your mouth will suffer damage during your treatment.

But, if you're going through chemo, you probably heard all that and more from your doctor. What they don't tell you is what I briefly talked about in the last tip- the taste. The chemo leaves a metallic taste in your mouth, and add that up to the taste of all the bacteria sitting on your tongue and teeth, and you got yourself a very smelly and unpleasant gaging reflex machine. And, as if that's not enough, the damage your gums will suffer will make your jaw so tight it'll literally give you headaches.

What I do is very simple. I treat every symptom on it's own, and it all comes together. I brush my teeth 5 times a day. Brushing my teeth is literally the worse part of my day during the side effects week, and a different tooth will hurt to the touch of your brush every time. But it's worth it, it really works. it also helps with the jaw tension because your gums are healthier, but also, I massage the jaw joint (the one next to the ears) when I am lying in bed and I feel good to do it. As for the bacteria and the tongue, use mouthwash. I use an amazing one called Tantum Verde. It doesn't sting, gives and immediate pain relief, and the taste will be gone instantly. If you don't have access to that specific mouthwash then any other mouthwash will do, and if you don't have access to mouthwash at all then water and salt/ baking soda will work just fine.

Tip # 3- Hair and Sculp

Here, we got to the big guns. The biggest thing every girl (and boys) fear the most about going through chemo is their hair falling out. I have been talked to about my hair falling out at least FOUR TIMES before I started chemo, when the tongue abbreviation and cold sores were merely mentioned to me, once. Getting bold in not a fun process. I had an amazing full head of curls that I nurtured and cared for proudly with all the best hair products and natural remedies money can buy, and it was gorgeous. Because my hair was so thick, full and healthy I thought I could manage to save it, as I heard that sometimes you are left with some hair and you can manage to hide the bold spots. I was sadly mistaken. If you think you can avoid losing your hair I am so sorry to inform you, you live in a bubble, sweetie.

But, the good thing about it is- it's just hair. And guess what, it grows back! remember you are fighting for your life here and there are better things to worry about. Embrace your baldness and order some bandanas online. It is not the end of the world believe me, the whole world is wearing wigs now, and it'll really bring out your face.

BUT hair falling out, as unpleasant as it might be, is actually not really what I wanted to talk to you about in this tip. Another thing they don't tell you (!!) about the hair situation is why it is falling out. The treatment, along with attacking the cancer, is going to attack a bunch of other things in your body, including your fast growing hair cells. The way it's attacking them is by drying them dead, leaving you with no hair and a dry sculp. And here's where I'm going with this- the process of your hair falling out is going to be painful, due to a dry, itchy sculp.

There is a very, very easy solution to this. The dryness comes from the cell dying, and not producing the natural oils that it usually does. Well, plop some oil on it and your all set! Coconut oil, almond oil, baby oil, which ever oil your heart desire. Oh, and shave your head. Yes, you heard me right. shave it. This is the hard part, because why would anything be easy about cancer? Just do it, don't be brave. Believe me, it will help. The hair will get unmanageable pretty quick anyway, and it's just not worth keeping it with all the mess and the pain. The oil will help your sculp, but please let go of the hair...

Tip # 4- Food

It might seem weird to you, because why do we even talk about food when half the time we are vomiting anyway? Oh, good. It's true that you might not be able to eat much after a treatment, but there are some types of food that are known to be helpful. For example, freshly squeezed orange juice is known to help in multiple occasions to feel strong and it mostly doesn't interfere with the stomach. Other vegetables and fruits are also really recommended (steamed, baked or cooked), for me the only thing I could swallow in the days of the treatment was avocado toast. When you are nauseas, it helps to find something that can coat your stomach like bread or rice. My favorite was Israeli couscous.

Well, the point it, you should eat healthy. I know, obviously you should eat healthy all the time, but this time it really is important. Your body is going through a lot, your immune system is gonna go down severely, and you really do need to be strong and healthy, it really will make a difference. It's also important to be careful of infections. The last thing you want is getting food poisoning on top of the side effect. My real point is, be creative with your food. Your sense of taste is going to change, and you should be open to knew things and to knew ideas. listen to your stomach, and don't be stubborn.

Tip #5- Moving Around

Ok, this one might sound a bit weird, but hear me out. Your body is going to go through a lot of pain, and you will feel different type of sensations, mostly unpleasant and weird. You will try to make sense of those sensations, and try to see where they are coming from and why. That is what we are trained to do as humans. I'll tell you now, it is useless. You will never know if what is happening to you is normal, because nothing about this is normal. If you are feeling anything out of the ordinary you should consult your doctor.

But a lot of the times you will feel some of this pain and weird sensations in the body solely because you are not moving. Going out, walking, lying on the floor and breathing even, is going to help you a lot in detecting weather you need to call your doctor or not. Getting the blood flowing will release hormones in your brain that will make you feel good, including Adrenalin. Stretching your muscles will help with the fatigue and the aching feeling all around the body. If you are unaccustomed to this type of things, start slow. Walk, stretch your legs, maybe do some basic yoga positions. If to put it in the words of one of my nurses: "I know it's tough, but get yourself together, mate".

That said, listen to your gut. If something doesn't feel right, or doesn't go away with normal methods, please talk to your nurse or doctor about it as soon as possible.

Tip #6- Always Learn

If you stayed reading till now it probably means you needed to read this story, or you scrolled down and just reading the last tip because it caught your eye. Either one, I'm happy you did. This might be the actually important tip of all. This is what will keep you going and help you not to lose yourself in the process of beating this beast call cancer.

Always learn. Keep your eyes and ears open to what your body needs and more importantly, what your mind needs. You and only you can take care of your mind, and know how to treat it. You really don't need to be strong to go through chemo, you ARE going through it if you'd like it or not because you have no other choice. But you do need to be strong to keep yourself intact and whole. This is the real test here, and why this is going to be such a tuff time for you. stay yourself, and don't stop. You can achieve this by doing the one thing we as human beings known for- learning. Learn how to not lose hope.

Chemo is one of the most brutal thing you will go through in life, I know it's definitely on the top of the my list, but it does not define you. Even though you are going through it right now, just think of why it is you are doing it. To LIVE. Think of how much life there will be at the end of the tunnel. THIS is what's going to define you. not the chemo.

Lastly, I would like to share a platform for cancer patients called Belong. It is an app that was created by Israelis entrepreneurs, to connect cancer patients, family members, friends and even doctors, to share tips and questions you might have. It is a wonderful idea that could really help someone who might be struggling, or feel alone. If that person is you, go and check it out.

That's it for today, I hope this was useful to you, and just remember to keep going.