From January onwards, I will have to take my Tamoxifen every morning for the next 10 years.
To put it into perspective, that’s how long criminals get sent away to jail for robbery.
Tamoxifen is a form of hormone therapy used to treat breast cancer in pre-menopausal patients, and is supposed to greatly reduce the risk of cancer recurrence.
One of the major problems that it’s giving me is hot flashes. Yep, just like those menopausal women in their 50’s. I’d usually feel the hot flashes in the evening and at midnight. You know that it’s serious when someone who hates the cold has to sleep with the AC on. Even the AC doesn’t cool me enough and I still wake up in the middle of the night because my body would heat up that it’s become unbearable. Sometimes I’d feel like sleeping outside in the snow. That’s how bad it is.
The hot flashes get better over the weeks but it’s still not going away even after 6 months. And I still get woken up at midnight. Holy moly, I cannot imagine having to go through this again when I’m actually menopausal.
The other day, I happen to go to another pharmacy than the usual one, and the pharmacist was surprised that my oncologist had set me up for 10 years of Tamoxifen. They have cancer patients who only had to do 5 years. Honestly, I’m not sure if I want to take it for that long yet but I’ll listen to my oncologist for now.
Cancer At 35 
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