FEAR: First Chemo

There are so many different fears when facing chemo and the potential side effects. Here we will share specific tools and approaches to navigate our individual fears.

Hi, I'm Maggie.

And I'm Dina. And this is the show where we get real and raw about breast cancer, the fear, the love, the changes, the surprising gifts, and the celebrations in it all.

At the end of the episode, we will be asking you to share your real and raw insight from this conversation.

Are you ready to dive into today's episode?

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to heal inside and out. Today, Dina and I are going to continue our discussion about fear. As usual, though, we want to first provide a little bit of a trigger warning. Because things can and do get real and raw as we share things about our breast cancer experience here on Inside and out. So if this is not for you today, if you're not feeling up to it, please come back another time. So we have talked about fear as it relates to getting the call the diagnosis. We've talked to it as I've talked about it as it relates to the port installation. And now I let's talk about fear as it relates to the actual chemo. So, Deena, there's a lot there with chemo. Oh, gosh, right. And I am sure we're gonna come back to it in different contexts. But as it relates to chemotherapy, when you were first facing that, what were some of your big fears associated with chemo?

Oh, boy, where do you begin? To be honest with you, right? There was just so many different fears. Maggie, I don't know if you know this, but my first chemo treatment. I did not have my husband by my side. I did not know that. Yes, I didn't think you did. At that time, he was in another country with my oldest daughter because she was going to veterinarian school. And they were down in the Caribbean. So my youngest daughter was with me, but she didn't want to be alone. She takes everything to heart. Like, if she can't help, she doesn't know what to do. But that's where my sister ended up coming from New Jersey. And it just so happened that she ended up coming with me. Every treatment from New Jersey, she would drive a while. So that initial fear was, oh my gosh, I'm doing this without my husband, not even thinking about what the chemo drugs gonna do to me. I was just so focused, he's not with me. And when I sat in my chair, and they access my board, and they started the chemo. At first, I was just like, alright, is this going to make me sick? Am I going to throw up? Is it going to make me nauseous? Is it going to give me a headache? Am I going to have one of those big huge reactions. And to be honest with you, I really truly didn't have any of that. But as the chemo treatments went on, and on and on, the number one biggest fear of mine was not having control of my bowels. As you see in the movies, you read in articles people tell you, you're going to be in the bathroom constantly. And that was my biggest fear. Because I still worked. I still worked out I kept my life the same way. I hardly tried to change anything. And that fear came true. There were plenty of times where I had to wear an undergarment specially at work. And it was embarrassing. Like nobody knew it was there except me.

But it was still so hard.

Oh yeah, absolutely. True. It was very hard. And the days that I thought I'd be fine and not where one was when other things started to happen. You know, and I just had to learn how to accept that this is going to be one of my side effects.

Wow. Well, so how did I mean learn to accept it? You've done a lot to help yourself navigate fear. But in this situation specifically, what are some ways you helped yourself navigate that.

How I navigated through it is really, I did a lot of breathing techniques, I decided that I needed to just calm myself down, instead of making the anxiety level go higher and higher, which I'm sure contributed to it as well. So I did a lot of deep breathing exercises. And the other thing is I had a little go bag. I always had a change of clothes with me, and an undergarment. And it was just something that I needed to learn how to cope with. Was it easy? Nope, not at all. I felt like I was taking care of an infant, I felt like an infancy stage. Here I am have no control over my bowels. And when my system started to what I would call percolate. I knew that all right, hit the bathroom, do what you need to do. And then just make sure from that point forward, I always had an undergarment on. So the bottom line is really learning how to exceed number one, except that this is how my body's reacting to my chemo, but it's also helping me it's also healing me, it's curing me. So it was acceptance, being prepared. Speaking about it, you know, to, you know, like my, there was definitely one co worker at work, who went through breast cancer. So I would talk to her, she was a little bit of my sounding board at that time. And it really took a lot of energy and effort to say, this is what it is, you're going to get through it. I would talk to myself, you probably think I would crazy if you walked by me sitting here talking to myself. With the affirmations and positive thinking,

not even a little bit. I hear Yeah.

Yeah. So those are some of the things on how I navigated through my fear of chemotherapy.

Well, it's interesting being on because when I hear you talk about fear in different contexts, where you now had to ask for support, and you were always the ones supporting everyone else, had you been supporting a different person going through having to bring these undergarments and feeling that embarrassment, I'm sure you would have been all over helping them through that fear. wearing their hats, right?

Yes, 100% I had no problems sitting by somebody's side crying with them holding their hand, cleaning them up, telling him it's going to be okay. It's okay that you were an undergarment. Nobody's going to notice it. You know. So yes, now that the table was turned on me, it was like, whoa, wait a minute. I just tell everybody else. But how come I can't tell myself the same thing? Right. Right, which I learned how to do.

I love how you call it your go bag to.

Yeah, that's what I called it. It was it was known, it was known that I had my little gold bag. And after a while people realized what it was and I sometimes I was ashamed of it. And and sometimes I was like, Hey, this is what I gotta do. I'm surviving. I'm living. I'm getting through this. I'm beating this and this is my go bag.

And how many chemos did you have, Deena?

Oh, I lost count. I had it for a year. Okay. Mine was

like every week or every third or what like what was your regimen?

My first two drugs were every other week for three months. Then it was weekly for 12 weeks. And in between that 12 weeks, I had two more drugs that were every three weeks. And then after the 12 week mark, those two drugs that were every three weeks, continued for the rest of the year. So I had chemo for a year and two months. Actually I started in November and of 2016 and I ended at the end of 2017. Okay, yeah. Yes. So, I would love for our audience to hear your version or your perspective on your chemo treatments and what did you see are the most Maggie.

Well, what was interesting for me, it was like the toxicity. And I'll expand on that in a few ways. Because it was, I have always been one that has had, I didn't like to take pills of any kind unless I had to. So even headaches, it's like, I'm not taking an ibuprofen or Tylenol, because I don't want to put that in my body. But if I had to, I would write, but I was always sort of avoiding that. And then I think you even said it, you've watched all the movies, and you've watched people on the movies and TV shows go through chemotherapy. And that what it was going to do to my body is what I feared the most, like, what else now is going to happen within my body beyond this, keep this cancer that's in there. So I was really worried about the toxicity. And I had what they were telling me before I started chemo is you have a more aggressive, I was triple positive, they caught it early, though, thank God. And they so they wanted to start right away with chemo. Right? And the chemo they were going to start with was a bit higher level or more intense or potent, or however you want to call it. So then it ramped up that fear of the toxicity. Right? Exactly. So I was always wondering how was my body going to combat this. And initially, it was just because of what I've seen on the movies or on TV or heard about it. But then, on top of that, when I was sitting there ready to get my first chemo, I like you did not have my husband there. For me, it was different reasons. It was right in the beginnings of COVID. So I have anyone with me. And you go in there, and there's all of these rooms and you sit down. And the nurses have done this many, many times, right? They're just good at it. There's a routine they know what to do. Well, when they start putting on hazmat suits to handle the drug that's now going to be slow dripped into my body. Yes. That fear went off the charts. This like somebody in a spacesuit coming out? Yeah, exactly. And, and they had to do that. And they get it. They're handling it all day long. And there's many, many reasons for that. But my fears just circled around. What else now is going to go on within my body. So that was that was a big part of it.

May I ask when you were feeling this, that what was going in your body? What are the kinds of thoughts were going on? With you as far as this toxicity, this toxic drug that's what did you think might happen or might not happen? Well,

what I thought might happen is Okay, so let's say it does help me with the cancer. But what if it causes a bunch of other problems that my body can't handle? Because it is a toxic thing in and of itself?

Right? So go ahead. Oh, I'm so sorry. No, because they just a good point came to mind was when you said what is this? What else could this drugs or these drugs do to our bodies? I had a specific chemo drug that I needed to have a cardio gram to make sure that my heart was okay.

Yes, so So that's a great point. Because the same thing with me, it's like okay, now we got to check your heart every month or every whatever it was, and it was like I thought I had gotten over that fear about that part next to my heart. Now you're so that's a very good point that that amped up the fear. And that was that was a big part of it is because of all the checks that they needed to do with, you know, labs, of course, your blood, right things but also the heart piece.

Right, right.So, so during this time, what did you do to navigate that fear of this being so toxic to the body? Because that was your main fear? Yes, these hazmat suits, people coming at you looking like a bunch of zombies and covered up like you would not believe now they're coming out too. So it's like, how did you how did you handle that? Well,

so the very The very first email, I had my chemo bag, which I'm sure everybody had their chemo bag, right, and I put some of my precious things my I had some, like a rose quartz crystal that my daughter had given me for healing and some other things. And I would bring those with me to therapy, which helped. But the biggest thing that I did, which was so to me, visually helpful was I would place my hand over my heart, after they attached everything to the port, and just imagine a gold light going into my body. And just saying to myself, this is going into my body to handle only the job, it's here to handle, it's going to get rid of the cancer, and that is what it's doing. So, and that I think holding my hand there and imagining the gold light just helped me. It was it's almost like you're breathing too, right? It's really helped me calm my nerves and shift more into trust. So that was that was one of my big things.

Right? Oh, that's amazing. So it's it's affirmations, it's visualization. It's positive self talk, these deep breathing, these are a lot of the techniques that we use to get through what we need to get through. Yes, we are talking about cancer, we are talking about chemotherapy. But these tools can even be used for any situation that somebody's going through

that and that's very true. And when you think about cancer, it's a big scary thing. There are a lot of other big scary things out there. Right? So when we think of fear, and really trying to stop the momentum of our thoughts going to that what if worst case scenario and bring it back and and that you said it's so perfectly there with just the calming the mind calming the body? Giving, I always say turn fear into love, right? Just giving yourself some some loving self talk and space to just surrender some of that. And it's, even as we sit and say it in the moment, it's not always easy. And we know that.

No, it's not a constant practice. Sometimes we hit that panic button a lot too fast. Yep, absolutely, exactly. As.

So I, I will say to that, and this will come up in another episode, I'm sure multiple episodes that another thing that I did do is I seeked alternative medicine, because I knew that there were options out there. But I wasn't also willing to take the risk of not following the prescribed Western medicine approach. And so when I did seek the other the Eastern medicine, I learned a ton. And I had an amazing Chinese doctor that literally just told me, let me help you treat the symptoms. And so that gave me some some more peace of mind that he was helping me combat what email was doing in my body outside of just helping treat the cancer. So again, a whole other episode. But that, to me was wonderful to be able to take some tea and some decoctions and things that he would give me and trust that that was tonifying my body in a different way and helping that.

Exactly. That's, that's, that's actually another tool that we can use. And a lot of people know of it. And there are a lot of people that don't know about Eastern medicine and being able to help with the symptoms. Right right side effects that we go through.

Yeah, and there's resources out there, but it's what are the trusted resources? Where do you start so that there's, there's that's another set of episodes, like I said, but I think just looking into alternatives to augment and also making sure you get trusted opinions and be open. I told my oncologist Yes. So it's been open about what things you're doing so that your doctors are aware and all that too.

Yeah, because they need to communicate with each other and most professionals will do that. Yeah, they will speak to each other, which is which is really an awesome thing to go through because you have two different perspectives. That is real The the main concern is getting you through this healing you what a great episode we've been talking about.

Yeah, and I will say just to wrap up like our like we talk a lot about this fearful stuff because like we say it's real and it's raw. And when I look back on my chemo specific journey, it wasn't as bad as my mind did make it out to begin with, and it wasn't as bad as it would have made it out to be. Now, losing your hair is not fun. Throwing up is not fun losing control of your bibles is not fun, right?

No, it's not.

But it is something that is different for everyone. So try not to let the fear take over the thoughts of the way it can go or the way it is going or the way it might go, et cetera.

Exactly. And I'm just going to add one other little comment here is that if you try something the first time and it doesn't work, that doesn't mean there's nothing else out there. Very true. You know, our bodies are so unique. Yes. There's an example you and I were diagnosed with the exact same cancer, but our journeys were very different. Our side effects were very different. The tools that we use were different. Some of them were the same. Some of them work some of them didn't. You have to find what works for you. Exactly.

Great point. So I hope our all of our listeners, I hope you get something out of this for your own either journey into or on the other side of experience. So Thanks, Dina. It's okay. As always,