The oncology team assured me that most of the side effects that would happen to my body during chemotherapy and radiotherapy would eventually reverse themselves but that I also needed to aid my body in recovery by being kind to it.

Taste:

This was the first change. It started the same day I had the first hit of chemo. It got progressively worse and by the end of chemo, it was unbearable. It was also one of the first reversals. As my body flushed out the chemo toxins my taste sensations returned slowly.

CHEMO SIDE-EFFECTS:

Nerve Damage:

The effects of this progressed gradually as my treatment went on. The skin underneath my nails and feet turned black. The palms of my hands darkened, I experienced numbness and tingling of the hands and feet and towards the end of chemo, the joints and body aches became more pronounced.

The nerve damage under my nails and feet has reversed but I still have numbness of the feet and hands, sometimes stinging on the fingertips and the nail beds on my hands are still quite tender. These are also taking some time to heal.

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Skin Discolouration:

The skin on my entire body got darker as chemotherapy progressed. The skin around my left eye, palms, and feet became extremely dark. The tip of my nose looked burnt but wasn’t painful.

The extreme darkening started to reverse about six months after chemo and it’s still getting slowly progressively better.

The skin on my entire body, in general, had become quite coarse during and after chemo and that is also slowly returning back to normal.

Hair-loss:

I lost all of my bodily hair by the time chemo was completed in June 2017.

I lost all of my bodily hair by the time chemo was completed.

I decided to keep all the hair that fell off my head without knowing why. Thinking back now I think it could have been part of my grieving process, of losing another part of what made me feel feminine – or maybe not wanting to let it go. I’m still figuring it out.

I started to notice very fine baby-like hairs near the fifth month after chemo had been completed. Only on the head at first and I would say growth started on my body eight months after chemo.

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While the hair on my head has continued to grow and has maintained its soft baby-like curls, there are problem areas that seem to be taking a lot longer to recover. 

My eyebrows are still filling out, while my eyelashes have grown back fully – I’m also back to shaving and waxing various body parts.

Purple Tongue:

This only lasted a few weeks and returned to normal before chemo was completed.

Leg Veins:

One of the changes that happened to my body which for me started during chemo and made much, much worse with the Herceptin injections to the thighs.

Sadly this does not seem to be reversing and like everything else, there are ways of managing it. There are various methods of getting rid of leg veins via different forms of laser treatments.

Chemo Veins:

For me, this was the big vein on my left arm where all seven rounds of chemo were administered. By the time chemo was over this large vein had become hard and non-responsive. The smaller veins around it had become black. 

While the big vein slowly became soft again, the little veins around it that turned black faded but almost three years after chemo they are still dark.

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RADIOTHERAPY SIDE EFFECTS:

Skin Discolouration On Treated Area:

The most noticeable side effect of radiotherapy is the extreme darkening of the treated area. The area feels very hot and tender continually for about a month, then started to improve.

I used cold aloe vera cream that was stored in the fridge for extra calming on the burning area.

The darkness of the skin faded slowly, but the treated breast remains sensitive, shiny, and the skin quite thin with very little elasticity.

Any heat rash on the radiotherapy-treated side of my chest during summer always takes a longer time to heal.