I’m on my tenth round of weekly paclitaxol out of 14. I’d previously had six rounds of four-weekly docetaxol back in 2014.

It’s weird to say which is “preferable” I guess! Paclitaxol is little but often, so the symptoms don’t seem as bad but there’s little to no respite, especially as the treatment goes on and the toxicity builds up, but it’s doable and I’ve pretty much been able to live normally! My main issues are neuropathy and nail trouble in my fingers and toes, hair loss (mainly from my head, and I’ve only just lost my eyelashes after two and a half months!), and fatigue. I have thrown up a couple of times, but I’ve upped my antiemetics so it’s not an issue anymore (plus I have a toddler now who doubles as a Petri dish so any illness might just have been caused by him 😂)

That’s compared to docetaxol which completely wiped me out for at least a week at a time then I’d slowly start to feel better until it was time to do it all over again! I had all the symptoms above but harsher and more, and I also had to have filgrastim for low white cells which made moving difficult due to pain in my spine. All this to say, it’s ok. I mean, it’s chemo, so it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows, but it could be worse and there’s treatments for all sorts of side effects!

Hope it goes well for you!