From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…
Though I talked very briefly some time ago about what the various chemotherapy drugs that my wife was treated with were “for”, I never really went into any kind of detail.
Now that chemo is “over”, I wanted to explore what some of the long-term and lasting effects of the treatment are. Because she reached that time – what with the odd numbing of her upper lip, the incision pains, swollen ankles and dry skin, I’d like to know which of those things is chemo-derived and which ones are not.
So we’ll g0 here next:
Adriamycin is the “second” drug of the cocktail she was force fed through the tubes and into her port every three weeks for six months. At first we called it the “red devil” because it WAS red and delivered in two, brat-thick syringes attached to the port tube. The nurse always came dressed in surgical gown, goggles, gloves and a mask – because getting Adriamycin on your skin could cause BLISTERING. (“And you’re injecting that into my wife because…”
This all came clear after research:
“In the 50s, an Italian research company was trying to find anticancer compounds from germs that live in the ground. They found one that was promising in an area surrounding the Castel del Monte, a 13th century castle. A germ that was related to the common “strep” bug and was bright red worked in trials against certain kinds of cancer tumors. Some French researchers discovered the same kind of compound that the strep germ made, so they combined the name of an ancient tribe that had lived near the castle and the French word for ruby red and came up with the name of the compound: Dauno-rubicin.
They tested it against leukemia (blood cancer) and lymphoma (lymph node cancer) and it worked – but they found that it also damage the heart.
They tried mutating it and they got another, related drug that worked as well, but wasn’t so damaging to the heart. They named this new compound Adriamycin, after the Adriatic Sea. The name was later changed to “doxorubicin” to conform to the established naming habits of the drug and chemical industry.
Adriamycin acts by jamming itself in between pieces of DNA in cancer cells. Any cell needs to make new DNA to make new cells. Adriamycin messes up the work of an enzyme that uncoils DNA so it can copy itself – it forces the DNA to stay open so it can’t close up and start splitting the cell to make new ones. The original cells age, then die, never having made any new baby cancer cells to continue the destruction of a human being.
But Adriamycin is DANGEROUS. Aside from the usual nausea, vomiting, and irregular heartbeats, it can also kill white blood cells (that’s why my wife got a Neulasta shot the day after chemo), as well as causing complete hair loss. “A more mild side effect is discoloration of the urine, which can turn bright red for up to 48 hours after dosing.” (My daughter wrote about this one in her first or second blog post, “Toxic Pee”: http://twenty.o-my-soul.net/?p=24). From a Georgia Tech manual for handling toxic compounds, we find this:
“Doxorubicin (trade name Adriamycin)…is a mutagen, carcinogen, and teratogen, and is highly irritating to the eyes, skin, mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract. Statistically significant…genetic damage have been reported in hospital pharmacists and nurses exposed to [it]. The toxic effects of doxorubicin may be experienced if swallowed, inhaled, ingested or exposed to the skin.”
Sheesh! No wonder the whole scenario creeped us out!
So besides slaughtering cancer cells, what’s the “rest of the story”? Grave indeed – “the risks of developing cardiac side effects…dramatically increase.” Doxorubicin makes the mitochondria (the place that makes the power to run a cell) in the heart muscles less able to make ATP – which is the energy used to run a cell: less energy, less strength for beating. Also, when Adriamycin reacts with the iron in blood, it can damage the heart cells, causing the fibers that tighten and loosen (making the heart beat) to disappear as well as eating holes in the cell’s jelly-like insides. Also, some patients may have weeping sores on the palms of the hand or soles of the feet, swelling, pain and a rash-like reddening of the skin – sometimes making the skin or hair a different color.
So there you go – a brief but chilling rundown of what THIS drug does to your beloved…
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