I am new to posting on the board. Thanks to those who have posted here and provided invaluable information. It has been a great resource since I started down this road.
Long story short - After feeling fatigued and lousy for more than a couple years, but never being able to get to the bottom of it with my doctors, I ended up in the ER in October of last year due to extensive bleeding and pain. Took about a month for them to fit in colonoscopy, and a mass was discovered. I had a rescission to remove a sigmoid colon adenocarcinoma at the beginning of December, 2017. Surgery ostensibly went well and I began Xeloda chemo in the middle of January to "mop up" whatever might be lingering behind.
I am wondering about the side effects anyone here has felt on chemo (Xeloda) and after surgery. Specifically, insomnia, loss of metal acuity and anxiety. I read some posts where people talk about the hand and foot syndrome, thinning hair, nausea. I have started to feel those effects here in the third two-week cycle.
But the things that have been bothering me the most are side effects that the doctors seem to shrug aside; an unnatural fatigue and mental haze that seems to get worse with each passing week. And despite feeling fatigued most of the day and trying to fight it with walks and light exercise, I can't sleep more than an hour or two a night. The doctors seemed to gloss over this as "usual anxiety" that comes with cancer, but I had bouts with insomnia before cancer, and this is substantially worse. Moreover, ever since the surgery, and especially since the start of chemo, I am just not mentally as sharp as I think I was prior. I find it incredibly disconcerting to drift off in the middle of conversations or forget what I was doing.
Anyone else have similar experiences, and if so, did it go away when the chemo ended?