Chemotherapy not easy

Sally Bowen went for eight months of intense chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2011.

The eight months of intense therapy certainly took its toll and she calls it “eight months of hell”.

After the first mastectomy she felt less of a women and even worse when the doctors had to do a second mastectomy.

This Geduld Extension resident says it deprives you of your dignity and feels like a slap in the face.

Although she knew it was cancer, the acceptance was still not easy.

After a biopsy was done she was told her cancer was malignant (cancerous).

When she received her first treatment in March 2012, she had to wait, with nine other women, for her blood tests.

“The blood tests will determine the chemo dosage which will kill the cancer cells quicker,” she says.

Sally remembers the 10 of them sitting in a row, each woman with a tray on their laps, containing the different dosages.

Due to the extent of her cancer, she received the strongest chemo and her tray contained two huge glass bottles and three bags of liquid.

She says when the nurse inserts the needle into her vein a small bag of chemo is used to open up the veins.

She felt the liquid, or poison as she calls it, entering her veins.

Although she felt sick to her stomach she looked at the other nine women and realised she was not alone in this.

After the first treatment she lost all the hair on her body and a lot of weight.

Sally says she couldn’t keep water down and sometimes threw up in the chair.

This made her addicted to chocolates and coke because it was all she could keep down.

With her chemo treatment completed she went back to the doctor for a follow-up visit and another shock awaited her.

The doctor informed her there was still live cancer cells in her body and it had now gone to her stomach, hips and was attacking the nerves in both her eyes.

But because the eight months of chemo treatment affected her heart, it is not possible for her to receive more chemotherapy.

She says every person knows their own body and they know what their bodies are capable of.

The motto she lives by is printed on a T-shirt she wears regularly.

“Support the fighters, admiring the survivors, honouring the taken and never, ever give up hope.”

Naomi Chapman, from Wings of Hope, is one of Sally’s supporters.

She says Sally is a strong woman who lives by faith and hope.

When diagnosed, it made her feel like a blob, but she needs no sympathy, but rather thrives on support, love, encouragement and care of her friends and family.

Although Sally is in constant pain, she believes it is never too late for a miracle.