Trisha,

At the check-in counter of the Chemo Unit of our hospital there’s a sign which says something like they know a lot of people are afraid of the side effects of chemo, but these days there are powerful meds for dealing with the nausea and the discomfort and so the side effects are minimized.

To an extent that is true. The hospital also advise the patients to “get ahead of the curve” which means that they should use the ant-emetic like Zofran when they start to feel queasy and not wait u til they are actually vomiting.

I don’t know if this can reassure you. I just find the doctors a bit insensitive in making that joke — the comeback I would use would be “the side-effect of living is death.”