Dex, drugs, and rock & roll

Since we've been hearing all about the miracles of dex... I thought I'd share a bit of my experience with the cocktail of drugs I am on. 

 I think people have the pre-conceived idea of what chemo is like from what we see most in the media.  Bald, pale and generally sick-looking people drum up more money... I get it.  But what many people don’t realize is that cancer care is constantly evolving and there are a multitude of different chemotherapy regimes today. For instance for the genetic make-up of my specific colon cancer there are 2 different protocols and 2 different immunotherapies.  Each of which come with different side effects.  

I actually found some interesting info on the makeup of Irinotecan (one of the harsher drugs I’m taking).  The active ingredient list reads like a health food store ingredient list.  Given how YouTube medicine likes to vilify evidence based treatment in favour of botanical and food based “treatment”... this list was extra interesting to me.  

Irinotecan belongs to a class of chemotherapy drugs called plant alkaloids.  The ingredients are derived from the following plants:

    • Periwinkle plant (catharanthus rosea). 
    • Pacific Yew tree (taxus).  
    • May apple plant. 
    • Asian "Happy Tree" (Camptotheca acuminata).  

The plant alkaloids are cell-cycle specific.  This means they attack the cells during various phases of division.

Source: http://chemocare.com/chemotherapy/drug-info/irinotecan.aspx


 *my favourite is the Asian Happy Tree... like really?!?  How can you go wrong with a drug derived from a Happy Tree 😂

Anyway... I digress and I blame the dex... see below.

The one common drug to most chemotherapy patients, and many radiation patients is Dexamethasone (aka Dex).  We’ve been hearing about it a lot in the news lately for its use in treating COVID patients with significant respiratory inflammation.  But it’s not something usually discussed in non-chemo circles, as it pertains to the chemo experience. The purpose of Dex in the chemo setting (as I understand it) is to reduce the worst of the nausea and general chemo-nastiness in the first few days. While this drug is great at that, it obviously comes with it’s own set of side effects. I take dex for the first 3 days of my 14 day chemo cycle.  Day 1 for me, when I get home, looks like I got some happy pills at a party. I’m a little wired, have no concentration and can basically be found wandering in circles in my house trying to figure out what to do with myself.  Then I crash... but do I sleep?  Noooooo.  For easily the first 6 days I don’t sleep more than a couple hours at a time.  Some cycles I’ve bordered on manic, being high energy on 3 hours sleep a night and no naps, often days after my last dose. (I confirmed... no strange purchases were made and no epic lapses in judgement... still can’t be trusted to cook a grilled cheese).  I am also known to say “I want to do ALL THE THINGS!” when I’m high on dex. Unfortunately I start “all the things” and poor Ian has to finish them. 🙈   Soooo to make a long story short... we have been having lots of laughs at a certain world leader’s  Tweeting habits... because they certainly strike me as dex fueled. 

Dex can be a bit of a rollercoaster... some great highs, followed by random periods of irritability (sorry family) then often a depressed day before getting back to normal, just in time to start it all over again.  

I find it interesting, having worked much of my career, bringing cancer patients back to work after their cancer journeys, I had never heard about this side of cancer treatment.  However, if you were a fly on the wall in the chemo suite... it's often a hot topic of conversation.  I heard an elderly gentleman telling a nurse the other day how his wife plans her "honey-do" list for his dex-feuled days.   I completely understand!

****  I started this post October 14th... just never got around to finishing it.  It's a bit scattered...I blame the dex 😏




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