Chemo Induced Neuropathy

And I'm hoping its not managing-the-damage stage yet. 

As we all know how damaging chemotherapy is to most of the patients, many people out there don’t know exactly what the damages are. In fact, it indeed is a long and stinky list which we patients might not even know all. Different chemotherapy regimen is tailored for different kinds of cancer and different drugs damages different things in your body. Some comes almost immediately, some later in your life. 

I had ABVD chemo regimen, and V which stands for Vincristine is a substance derived from a vinca plant (see our $1 dollar coin, that damn periwinkle). It causes hair loss in chemo patients too. 

During treatment I had pretty bad tingling and numbness in my fingers. Francesca gave me the "Ah! Vincristine!" look when I told her about it. She prescribe me with vitamin B complex and didn't adjust my chemo dose. This is a classic nerve damage neuropathy from chemo drugs. 

Now that I'm 5 months post chemo, this feeling is back in my soles, calves and thighs. It may be irreversible it be not. The worst case is losing the sense of touch. :O 

Hence, it's really not like you hit the refresh button when you survive cancer. People pat your shoulder and say everything is over, but what we usually do is to smile and sigh deep down.