What are the effects of chemotherapy?

[mrmitchell]

First, I'm fine, but a dear family friend is going through it.

I've been lucky enough to not be around too many who have cancer, so all I know about chemo is that it makes most people's hair fall out and weakens them.

I'm off to read the Wikipedia article (I'm not just lazy enough to foist this on you guys and not even look up anything), but I appreciate anyone who can relate their own knowledge and personal experiences.

-mrmitchell

[Zkribbler]

A few years back, a friend of mine was going thru chemo. Chemotherapy is basically poison. The idea is that it is more poisonous to the cancer than to the patient.

My friend had two types of chemo he was dealing with. One type made him deathly ill for about five days. With the other, he was only sick for one day.

[DaShi]

Do we want to know why he was sick for only one day?

[Zkribbler]

You misunderstand. The first type was really powerful and made him really sick. The second type was milder.


--But he did cash in his chips. He was diagnosed as terminal with advanced colon cancer and given less than he year to live. He lasted for more than two but in the end . . .

[Guynemer]

Most chemo acts by attacking rapidly-dividing cells. This targets the cancers cells, but also the more rapidly-dividing cells in the body. This is where most of the side effects come from; hair loss (follicle cells), nausea and vomiting and diarrhea (gastric and intestinal cells), anemia and immune deficiency (bone marrow cells).

[Urban Ranger]

Some other strange side effects:

-- Tiredness
-- No appitite
-- Losing the sense of taste
-- The smell of oil causes nausea

This is from the obersavation of a single person

[Dinner]

It depends on the dose. My mother didn't have an easy time of it.