CHEMO -- a brief history and what's about to happen

 

This is going to be greatly simplified, but Kristina reviewed and said ‘post it’. 

We all know that Chemo has massive side effects, but the question that popped into my head was ‘why’.  What was the history of Chemotherapy, how does it work, and why are the side effects so miserable?

Surprisingly (to me at least) the roots of ‘Chemo’ date back to and begin with Germany’s use of mustard gas in world war I.  After the war two pharmacologists from the Yale School of Medicine were tasked by the defense department to see if there were any beneficial uses of these chemical agents and they made the link between derivatives of this terrible battlefield weapon and their ability to kill cancer cells.

The specific cocktails involved in Chemo have evolved quite a bit and are varied in their approach, but they work by killing fast dividing cells.  Most cells our bodies don’t divide particularly fast or regularly.  Cancer cells divide quite rapidly, so if you send in an agent that seeks out and kills fast dividing cells, it’ll attack the cancer cells and most of our healthy cells that don’t quickly replicate are left unharmed.

But there are a few categories of healthy cells that do replicate quickly and those are the ones that become collateral damage with Chemo’s onslaught.

The key cells that divide quickly are found in your mouth, blood, digestive system and hair follicles.  So hair loss, mouth sores, and all sorts of digestive tract distress are the side effects.  The blood levels plummet and there goes the immune system.  Infection risk is high.

So after chemo your digestive tract goes to hell, nausea threatens expel food one way and the other end, and the plumbing that lead to it, doesn’t work well either.  Nothing tastes good, your mouth feels rotten and any germ that feels like it can attack you without risk.

Chemo also creates a fog in the brain.  “Chemo Brain” becomes a phrase that’s well known to those that have undergone treatment.  Add to that the side effects of the drugs that are controlling nausea and other meds and, well, it’s not a walk in the park by any stretch.

So while some of us are looking forward to SeaFair and the air show over Lake Washington, Kristina, having gone through this before, is awaiting these side effects to fully manifest themselves. 

Using  sailing as a metaphor, picture yourself on the ocean without any port to run to.  A well forecasted storm is headed your way and you can’t outrun it.  You are going to have to shorten sail, make sure everything is securely stowed and dog the hatches tightly shut and simply take it, hoping that all your preparation will keep you safe.  Miserably uncomfortable, but safe.

This morning I asked Kristina how she felt on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is lousy and 10 was pretty good all things considering.  She said 7 or 8.  On the plus side no stuttering or shakes so far this morning.  But her appetite is gone and while she can’t quite put her finger on it, she says ‘something is brewing’.  She doesn’t feel completely ‘right’.  Storm clouds are gathering.  Yesterday she mused that Saturday would be the day she’d start to feel much worse, perhaps it’s starting a day or two earlier.

Take a moment and let’s hope our collective positive energy flows her way.