I just took my 28th dose of Sutent (sunitinib malate), Pfizer’s oncology drug, to fight my kidney cancer. You take the medicine in 28 day cycles, with 14 days off in between. My body now gets a two week break from the chemotherapy. It is hard for me to believe that it has already been fout weeks since I started the drug… it seems like it was just a few days ago.
The first ten days on the drug were almost uneventful with practically no side effects, but the dreaded side effects showed up at about day ten but they are not really all that bad. The biggest issue is fatigue. I stay tired all of the time and am sleeping longer than usual and napping during the day as well. When I get out of bed in the morning, I am tired before I make it to the bathroon sink to brush a god awful taste out of my mouth, and that taste, akin to sucking on a mouth full of copper pennies, is with me 24/7, and makes everything taste horrible. Mouth sores around my gums make it where any thing that needs to be chewed is out of the question also.
My lower back and shoulder muscles are constantly so tense it reminds me of the stress I used to feel as we drilled oil wells, except it never ends. The soles of my feet and the palms of my hands tingle (I say like they are asleep) for no apparent reason, but I have not had any blistering as some folks have reported.
All in all, I am quite happy as I believe the drug is working. It clearly is doing something inside me, and I’ll be going in for more scans in six weeks and we will know if the cancer has stopped growing. I sure hope it has.