Chemo Brain, No Shit!

Yes, finally someone is writing about it! The NYT’s has an article titled “Chemotherapy Fog is No Longer Ignored as Illusion.” Chemo Brain is a reality and anyone who has had it knows how real it is. Oncologists, not all but most from what I know, ignore its importance and effects.

It is bad enough that you are dealing with the debilitating physical effects of chemo, and there are so many, but to have chemo brain dismissed is a further insult to whatever little bit of dignity a patient needs to survive.

I couldn’t read, I couldn’t listen to music, I couldn’t watch television, and I had such a hard time trying to converse on a level which I was use to. I also had the unfortunate problem of having had a stroke during surgery so everything was relegated to that as the causal basis for my problems. But, chemo is accumulative and my symptoms were accumulating with each chemo. Now, it wasn’t just chemo brain that was dismissed as my treatments progressed. Those of us sitting in the waiting room waiting for our appointments also discussed our increasing pain in joints and bones, fingers and toes. These pains were also dismissed and individualized. No connection here to the treatment! But, we all had the same complaints. We had Chemo brain and Neuropathy.

Now, I have to say that I am thrilled to have survived so far from the radical treatment I received to fight my cancer. But, that said, those of us sitting in the waiting room all had the same stories, only different by level, and we were ignored and our experience belittled in our fight for survival.

So, even though it is 17 years after I had experienced chemo brain I am glad that someone, anyone, is taking it seriously and explaining to the future victims what they will experience.

When can the discussion on Neuropathy begin?