SUPPORT AND ADVICE
5 TO new rules HELP YOU THR OUGH CHEMO
C ARLA FARIA WAS DREADING CHEMO, BUT SHE FOUND WAYS TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE AND LOOK TO THE FUTURE. HERE SHE SHARES THE RULES THAT GOT HER THROUGH...
Chemotherapy is full of surprises. There are the big, ugly ones, like hair doesn’t slowly thin, giving you time to say a wistful goodbye, but drops out in clumps, leaving your shower looking as though it’s been carpeted. And the smaller surprises, like there’s little point asking for anchovies on pizza because you won’t taste them anyway. It’s important to know this and, I’ve found, to be prepared...
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Chemo and its side effects are well documented, and I’d done my homework before starting my own treatment. I’d been diagnosed with grade 3, triple-negative cancer in my right breast. I’d had a mastectomy with implant reconstruction and knew that the type of cancer I had meant that I was looking at a hefty chemo regime. Four weeks post-surgery, I had healed well and was declared fit and ready to start my treatment. Like many women who’d walked the path before me, I embarked on this peculiar chemical journey with trepidation. I dreaded the nausea, the fatigue and the hair loss and I was resigned to the idea of the menopause turning up early. I wasn’t much looking forward to it though. I also knew that life would inevitably
