Breast Cancer & How Chemo Works From Day to Day
As facing the unexpected can be unduly frightening, understanding exactly what to expect during your treatment regime can help you to more easily cope with the rigors of battling cancer. When it comes to treating breast cancer with chemotherapy, you will be subjected to a fairly effective and time-tested methodology that can help to control your cancer's spread or force it into remission.
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Breast Cancer
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Breast cancer will affect one out of every eight women during their lives, according to Medline Plus. Breast cancer is most easily detected through regular screening protocols, such as self and clinical exams, along with mammograms where necessary. Symptoms include a change in the size or shape of the breast, a pus-like discharge from the nipple, or a lump in the breast or armpit.
Chemotherapy
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Chemotherapy consists of the administration of poisonous drugs which ferret out and destroy rapidly dividing cells in the body. While cancer cells normally divide faster than ordinary cells, making them more likely to be affected by the therapy, chemo will nevertheless affect some normal cells as well, resulting in potential side effects throughout treatment.
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Chemo Application
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According to the American Cancer Society, the location of chemotherapy can vary widely depending on the type of treatment you are receiving, so application of treatment can conceivably occur at your home, your physician's office or at the hospital. Chemotherapy can be administered in pill form, as an injection or most often is administered intravenously injected directly into the veins.
Chemo Timeline
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Chemotherapy will vary in application on a day-to-day basis. Depending on a number of factors, including the type of cancer and its salient characteristics, your current condition, and the specific chemotherapy drugs that you are being given, the duration with which you receive treatment will vary--ranging from as often as every day to as infrequently as once per month. In most cases, application of chemotherapy will be no different from an ordinary trip to the doctor's office.
Side Effects
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The biggest hurdle in dealing with chemotherapy on a day-to-day basis will consist of dealing with the side effects. The common side effects likely to appear during therapy include changes in sexual desire, feelings of fatigue, hair loss, nausea and sores appearing around the mouth. The extent to which individuals are affected with side effects can vary widely from person to person and on a treatment-to-treatment basis, so know that the effect chemo has on your life can change daily.
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