During first chemotherapy. My face is already bloated from cortisone.

My hair and beard are still there.

BEACOPP would be more or less OK without the Cortisone. Unfortunately, Cortisone is considered a very important part of this protocol.

OK, the Cyclophosphamid also is a nasty substance. It smells really, REALLY bad, and gives you a really, REALLY bad taste in your mouth.

Some MDs were interested to hear how this tasted. Well, it's hard to describe.
It's like nothing you normally taste.

MAYBE a little bit like when you get shampoo in your throat. Multiply the effect by a factor of 5 and add a rotten, somehow organic taste (like chicken soup gone bad).

But actually, it's not really like this. It's much worse..

Also it causes nausea, no matter what anti-emetics they give you.
After some minutes, even your urine starts to stink like Cyclophosphamid.

The other substances are more or less OK to handle.

OK, the vincristine damages your nerve tracts and this will result in numb digits.

Also, the doxorubicin is said to be nasty and damaging, but I didn't experience any of this.

One word of warning: the substance you receive to guard your bladder (Uromitexan / Mesna) is a very agressive substance - not such a good idea if you receive it through the veins in your arms.

In combination with the other chemo-agents, Uromitexan will make sure your arm-veins will be kaputt soon.

My arm-veins were thick as ropes before the chemo. They lasted 6 cycles of chemo (3 BEACOPP-base, 2 BEACOPP-dose-escalate, 1 Cyclophosphamid high-dose), then they were kaputt.

So a Port-A-Cath actually is a must.

One MD told me once that I should not be such a sissy and that he had seen people without Port-A-Cath making it through 18 cycles of chemo.

To this I can only say: well, I am so sure that there are humans out there who have titanium-coated veins!