Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer - treatment complications
For most people with ovarian cancer treatment goes according to plan, but for a minority something goes wrong, causing additional health problems. Such treatment complications are rare and the problems they cause may last longer than the more common side effects of treatment, which are usually reversible. Women with complications often feel that they keep getting set back on their road to recovery, which can be upsetting and frustrating.
After any abdominal surgery adhesions can form. These are growths of fibrous tissue, like scars, that stick tissue and organs together. Adhesions sometimes cause problems and one woman we interviewed developed acute pain and had to have an operation to remove adhesions that were blocking her bowel. Another woman had chronic diarrhoea after surgery because a valve had been removed which normally prevented bile salts from entering the bowel. Once recognised this was quickly controlled with medicine.
She eventually needed an operation to remove adhesions that were blocking her bowel.
She eventually needed an operation to remove adhesions that were blocking her bowel.
But eventually after an x-ray they discovered that I had got a blockage in my bowel, some adhesions, forced by adhesions which if you ever have an operation in that part of your body you always have these adhesions hanging down and at any point they can loop round the bowel or they can cause problems with blockages. And I have had that before in my life. And it's very, very, very, very painful.
So I had to be admitted to hospital and I had a bowel surgeon come to see me now and he decided that the best thing to do would be to wait for a few days and see if the blockage resolved itself. It wasn't life threatening at that point.
But then eventually what he did, he decided to operate, and so I had my second operation within about 2 months, which was not very good at all.
Diarrhoea was caused by bile salts entering the bowel after a valve was removed from her bowel.
Diarrhoea was caused by bile salts entering the bowel after a valve was removed from her bowel.
Sometimes extensive abdominal surgery leads to the development of a hernia, the protrusion of part of the intestines through an abnormal opening in the abdominal wall. A few women needed further operations to put this right. After her hysterectomy one woman had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which was successfully treated with medication. Another was found to be allergic to the morphine she received for post-operative pain.
Developed a hernia after her hysterectomy and needed another operation to put it right.
Developed a hernia after her hysterectomy and needed another operation to put it right.
So I then had to go on and have another operation a year later. But by that time so much of the intestine had spilled out behind the muscle wall, that it ended up quite complicated. And I mean I just looked so perverse, I really did, it was, you know, it was as though I could never leave the cancer behind, because I ended up with this comedy body as we used to call it, and still do a certain degree.
So last Easter, not the Easter just gone, in 2002, I had what was hopefully the last operation to repair the muscles. But unfortunately because so much had spilt out it ended up quite complicated and I now have meshes in my abdomen.
Developed a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after her hysterectomy.
Developed a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after her hysterectomy.
I finished my dinner, and I thought, 'My leg feels a bit funny'. It was my left leg. And it felt a bit sort of stiff in the calf area. And I just, as he was out in the kitchenette, just looked down, and it was swollen, like that, it was like I'd ' my leg had a football half way up in the calf, and the ankle was quite swollen as well. And I felt it, and it was very stiff, like there was a football there, as opposed to sort of squidgy. And so I panicked because I knew the symptoms, you know, or I'd been told to look out for DVTs and that, not thinking, for one minute, that I would get one, because I'd had the silly socks and the injections and so on.
But, I went out and showed him, and he said, 'No, that don't look right, does it'. So' it wasn't painful, it wasn't red and hot, but we went to the GP, who looked at it and felt it, and said, 'Yes, it definitely is'. He sent me to the local hospital, which only does minor injuries, so they gave me another bee sting injection, with the dosage that the hospital had been giving to me.
The next day I had to go to the hospital and have a scan, an ultrasound scan again, and they found' she went straight to it actually, she used the scan on my left groin, and that's where the clot was, it had gone from my calf to my groin, so then they put me on the Warfarin, and I was on that for about eight months all told.
Had an allergic reaction to the morphine she was given for post-operative pain.
Had an allergic reaction to the morphine she was given for post-operative pain.
A few women had problems having needles put in their veins to take blood or to administer their chemotherapy. One had such sore arm veins from repeated use that blood was taken from her feet, which was painful; another was left with bad bruises on her hands after inexperienced doctors had tried to find a vein. One woman had a tooth damaged while a tube was put down her throat during anaesthesia.
Was left with bad bruising on her hands from having cannulae put in her veins for chemotherapy.
Was left with bad bruising on her hands from having cannulae put in her veins for chemotherapy.
Patients are more susceptible to infections after chemotherapy because the immune system is weakened (see 'Chemotherapy'). Although low blood counts are common during chemotherapy, infections are rare. However, one woman developed a chest infection and another had her treatment stopped after four sessions because her immune system was too badly damaged. She then developed meningitis, an infection of the brain and spinal cord.
She developed meningitis after chemotherapy damaged her immune system.
She developed meningitis after chemotherapy damaged her immune system.
So for my, for my particular case it was felt that the risks were now becoming too great.
So it wasn't that you had a bad reaction to it or anything like that?
Not physically but internally obviously it was depleting my immune system and it wasn't swinging back. With the chemotherapy the cells drop off and then they start to recover and that's why they give you monthly treatments and they give you time for the immune system to recover. But it probably doesn't recover to the same level. It is expected to drop down, but with mine it dropped down and didn't recover and dropped down even further and didn't recover, and carried on to the point where it was becoming dangerous or certainly not advisable as a treatment for a stage 1 cancer.
And then I got meningitis, but that's another story and that was because my immune system was depleted from the chemotherapy treatment.
Some people have an extreme reaction to chemotherapy. Some women we talked to were so sick after their treatment that they needed to be admitted to hospital. One of these women explained how she discovered that it was how she was taking her morphine that caused the problem rather than the chemotherapy itself. One woman had abdominal pains after her chemotherapy and another had an allergic reaction to the anti-sickness medication. Very rarely the chemotherapy drugs themselves may cause anaphylactic (allergic) shock.
Was very sick after chemotherapy and needed to be hospitalised.
Was very sick after chemotherapy and needed to be hospitalised.
And I have a neighbour who has become a very good friend and support who's a doctor, and she said "I'm going across to get him." Brought him, he gave me an injection and said "If this doesn't work in forty-five minutes come back and get me," and he said to me " I'm putting you, I'm phoning, I'm putting you back in the ward, I'm phoning for the ambulance, I'm telling them you're on your way, I hope you don't mind." So I said "Please feel free." So I went. And they were worried, he said "I'm glad they're going to see what happens when patients come back from the day hospital sometimes," as a GP no doubt he's seen some of, you know, these things happen. But then they can put more patients through and for most people it works very well.
Was very sick after chemotherapy but found out that it was caused by the way she was taking her morphine.
Was very sick after chemotherapy but found out that it was caused by the way she was taking her morphine.
So we had quite a horrible time at the beginning of the first treatment because I was on morphine and it was difficult to get the dose right and also I don't know whether I hadn't explained it, I don't really know, but I didn't feel that anybody had twigged that the morphine might be making me sick. Because I was very sick after the first chemo and my husband went back to the hospital three times for more anti-nausea tablets, and in the end the Sister said 'your wife really shouldn't be, she shouldn't really be still feeling this from the chemicals'. But nobody had said, put two and two together and decided that it was probably the morphine.
So I thought we'd better see a pharmacist at the hospital, who really spotted the problem right away and explained that I had been taking these morphine tablets when I felt I needed them, which is not the way to do it at all apparently. You have to take them, if it says 'every four hours' every four hours, otherwise you keep feeling sick, because the effects wear off. Then you have another one to kill the pain and it causes you to feel sick. So I really was doing it myself. But everybody worked together so that when I had the second session of chemo it was all sorted, and it is.
Had an allergic reaction to the chemotherapy on her sixth treatment.
Had an allergic reaction to the chemotherapy on her sixth treatment.
And as she started' As the carboplatin started to go into my body, I started to think, 'Oh, I can't breathe properly'. And I was literally pushing myself out to try and breathe. And she looked at me and suddenly moved very quickly, and I'd had some kind of anabolic reaction, some kind of reaction to the treatment. And so I had to have something pumped into me to counteract that treatment. And she said, 'I can't give you any more'. So on my sixth treatment, I didn't have a sixth treatment because, whether my body was actually rejecting the treatment, which is what the oncologist said had happened.
Chemotherapy can affect kidney function, which is usually monitored before and during treatment. After her cancer had failed to respond to conventional chemotherapy, one woman had it treated (outside the UK) with peritoneal chemotherapy, where the drugs are injected directly into the abdomen. Because of an error in the way the treatment was administered her kidneys failed. She was later tried on a dose of intravenous chemotherapy but her immune system went into shock and she ended up spending two weeks in a coma in intensive care.
Had chemotherapy injected into her abdomen and her kidneys failed due to an error in the administration of the drugs.
Had chemotherapy injected into her abdomen and her kidneys failed due to an error in the administration of the drugs.
I started my chemotherapy about a week after the surgery. I didn't come out of hospital, I stayed in until I was ready for my first chemo, which was Taxol and cisplatin. And I had 6 treatments of Taxol and cisplatin and it didn't clear it. I still had, my CA 125 was still a couple of hundred, so the oncologist wanted me to have peritoneal chemotherapy. So I had surgery to put a port into my abdomen and when they did that surgery they had a second look and said there was new growth there. So I had a wash of cisplatin, just cisplatin on its own into my abdominal cavity. Now, that did do the trick.
I went into remission. Unfortunately it also killed off my kidneys completely so ever since then, that was in April '97 I've had end stage renal failure which has required haemodialysis 3 times a week.
Was tried on chemotherapy after her kidneys failed but ended up in intensive care as a result.
Was tried on chemotherapy after her kidneys failed but ended up in intensive care as a result.
Last reviewed June 2016
Last updated June 2016
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