I'd like to hear experiences with BEP chemo.

[u/Suitable-Jackfruit39]

My 10yo starts chemo next week and I'm just looking for some experiences so I can kind of know what to expect. She'll still be in school. Should I be prepared to keep her home on off weeks as well? When do side effects usually start? How quickly did your child lose their hair (if they did)? I'm so sad for my girl and I just want to be best prepared to support her with whatever she needs.

[u/towee_s]

So much of it depends on the kid and the chemo. My daughter breezed through a year of vinblastine. We would hit the local zoo or McDonalds playplace right after infusions and you’d never guess that she was in treatment. Around the 9 month mark, she started getting mild leg pain from neuropathy. After a relapse, she did 13 rounds of cytarabine (ara-c). It was a little tougher, we pretreated with IV zofran to keep the nausea at bay. Her anc would drop around days 5-9 so we’d avoid public when possible for those few days. Her platelets would tank the following week, so she would bruise really easily. Her ANC would dip again during week 4, but usually not bad enough to warrant isolation. That treatment plan lasted 14 months and she only missed one week of school for low counts. She did the same chemo years and it was awful, it would cause a cytokine storm, fevers of 104-105, lots of joint pain and nausea for the first 2 weeks of each round. Fortunately that plan was only 6 rounds.

[u/Born-Butterfly-9611]

My 2 year old is about to do her 4th round of chemo. Also BEP. Obviously she is not in school yet, and I just gave birth to her brother two weeks before we found out about her diagnosis. However, even if she was a school age, I wouldn’t even think about sending her to school during her treatment. Especially if your child is going to have a port put in, the risk of him getting sick and getting a heart infection because of the port is high. It’s certainly not worth the risk. She’s done very well with the chemo treatment, and responded very well so far. But she has been allergic to etoposide so she needed etopiphos. Even that didn’t work and she had to do a desensitization method. I wish you all the luck and just take the wind when you can, that’s what I’m learning.

Also, my daughter lost her hair midway through the first round. So we shaved the rest of it off. Ironically enough it’s already growing back even though she’s still getting chemo. As far as side effects she’s had mild nausea and horrible temper tantrums because of the steroid she’s on. But that’s her only side effects