Chemo Side Effects for Breast Cancer Led to Weeks in the Hospital

As part of her journey with stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer, Lindsey Gunter experienced chemotherapy side effects so severe that she was unable to walk, and was admitted to the intensive care unit of Northside Hospital in Atlanta.

In the first installment of a multi-part interview with CURE, Lindsey discussed the start of her cancer journey, the onset of her side effect symptoms and the frantic search to determine what was causing her unbearable muscular pain.

CURE: What were the first signs that something might be wrong with your breast?

Gunter: It started with some very small symptoms. This was around March of 2024, I woke up and I had some pain on my right side, in my armpit area, almost on the side of my breast. And I was like, “That's weird. I've never felt that before.” It was a shock, because I hadn't felt any sort of pain like that before.

At the time, I was a bartender and was working three different jobs, all bartending; I was doing a lot of heavy lifting, so I just chalked it up to, maybe I stressed myself out too much at work that night. I was like, “I'm going to keep an eye on it.”

How did you decide to seek medical care after noticing these symptoms?

I waited like a week because I wanted to see how consistent it was, and the symptoms never went away. They didn't get worse, but they never went away. At that point, I was like, I should probably call a doctor or figure out what I need to do. I called my mom and was telling her what was going on. I was like, “I know I'm an adult, but I need an adult to help guide me and let me know what I need to do in this situation.” She sat down with me and gave me information to her OB/GYN. I didn't have any doctors at the time — I was a bartender, I didn't have health insurance, I never thought I was going to get sick.

I reached out to her OB’s office, told them my symptoms, told them what was going on, scheduled an appointment to come in; I think it was technically considered a checkup at the time.

I believe their earliest appointment was about another week from then, so I went into that appointment, they did a breast exam, and they were like, “There's a lump there, and we want to do some imaging, because we're a little bit concerned about it, especially with the pain that you have.” The next step was a mammogram. Unfortunately, it was about another two weeks for them to fit me in for that. So, at this point, I think I had had the pain, the symptoms and the lump for almost a month. By the time I had finally gotten the mammogram, they did the imaging, the results came back immediately, and they said the lump looked very suspicious, and that we needed to move forward. I think at that point they had recommended me to a surgeon. It was all very fast.

I was able to get into his office fairly quickly, I want to say, within the next day or two. So, I go see him, he does a breast exam, and was like, “Yes, there's a lump.” He wanted to do his own imaging as well, so I had another mammogram done right after that. Finally, it came to the point where he wanted to do a biopsy. At that point, it had been about a month and a half, almost two months, since my first symptom. He did the biopsy. It took maybe three to five days when he finally called me to ask me to come back in.

Can you walk us through your initial diagnosis process and timeline?

It was around July 20. He called me into the office to say my results from the biopsy had come back and it was positive for cancer. They had staged it as well as stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer, and they did wonderful breaking the news to me. They were extremely compassionate. I could not have had a better experience in that office with the news that they were having to give to me. That very same day (my appointment was in the morning), by that afternoon, they had scheduled me an appointment at an oncology office, which I thought was amazing, because I didn't have to go home. I didn't have to sit with the news. I was able to immediately go see an oncology office.

His original plan was to set me up with a chemotherapy regimen with immunotherapy included in it, it was going to be once every three weeks for a total of six treatments. I did my first chemotherapy treatment on Aug. 15, just after my birthday. I kept thinking, “This kind of stinks, because I get to celebrate my birthday and then turn around and do chemo.” However, it was a great birthday.

I then went on to do my first treatment. Everything felt what I would consider fine, considering that I was getting chemotherapy, not knowing what was going to happen to my body. I thought all was well.

What unexpected side effects did you experience after starting chemotherapy?

I went home, I slept, I drank water, I woke up the next morning and felt really tired, really nauseous, couldn't eat anything. I think a week went by, and I went in for my checkup. They said they did blood work and everything looked normal, everything was within normal parameters. I said I was winded all the time, and my muscles hurt really, really bad all the time. They said that was all normal, all of those symptoms happen when you have chemotherapy. My body seemed to be handling it exactly like everyone else's was, and to just continue to try to eat as much as I could and drink more water because I was dehydrated. So, I said, “OK.” I went home and did exactly what they said.

I think another five days after that, I woke up and I was in so much pain, I don't even really know how to describe it. When doctors ask you, “Can you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?” Well, I was at a 12. We called the office, and I kept saying, “My muscles hurt. My muscles hurt.” And they kept saying, “Do you mean your bones? Your bones are supposed to hurt.” I said, “No, my muscles hurt.” They said, “OK, that's not normal. You need to go to the ER right now.”

I'll never forget this moment. I tried to stand up, and I couldn't stand anymore, because at that point my muscles hurt so bad, I couldn't put any pressure on them, but I had to get downstairs because my apartment was upstairs. I had to get downstairs to get in the car to go to the ER and my husband got me up, at least to be able to stand on my feet, and the best way to describe this was he danced me over to the door and danced me down the stairs to be able to get me to the car. It was the sweetest thing. Well, he's done a lot of sweet things, but it was one of the sweetest things that he could have ever done, considering how much pain I was in.

I wasn't paying attention to the moment, but when my mom kind of came back and told me what she saw, she was like, “You guys were dancing, even though you were in so much pain, you guys were dancing all the way to the door and down to the stairs to get you into the car.” That still kind of makes me tear up a little bit.

I got into the car, get to the ER, and they can't figure out what's wrong with me. At this point I'm vomiting because I'm in so much pain. I'm dehydrated, and they get me hooked up to fluids and get me settled on some pain medicine. However, the pain medicine’s not working, and they can't figure out why.

It turns out I am the 1% of the population that morphine doesn't work on.

How did your medical team determine the cause of your severe pain?

They get me set up with some other pain medicines that finally start working. At this point, I'm kind of blacking in and out due to pain and pain medicine. So, my mom's explained to me a little bit about what happened while I was in and out.

They did a lot of blood testing, which was very hard for them because they couldn't find a vein that would want to work, because at that point, my veins were so dehydrated that they couldn't really find anything that would give them any sort of blood.

I do remember, I think they tried at least 15 times between both of my arms to get an IV in. I do remember that pain, that was rough. Finally, I think I had screamed out, “Just use my port,” which had just been put into my chest. It still had stitches over it, and they were a little hesitant about it, but they finally said, “OK, we're going to use her port.” They were able to get blood and start running tests to figure out what's going on.

I blacked out again, but my mom said a nurse came running in and said, “I know what it is. I know what happened. I know what's wrong with her.” Everyone turned around and was like, “What? What is wrong with her?” Basically, it's where your muscles start excreting so much protein that it's incredibly painful. It only happens to people who work out excessively or run marathons excessively. Basically, you stress out your muscles so much, that's what happens.

They turned to my mom, and they were like, “Was she working out? What was she doing?” And my mom was like, “She was sleeping. She's been sleeping for four days.” So, they were like, “We don't know how this could happen to her, but we know how to help.” They started flooding my body with fluids, because that's the only way to help, and keeping up with pain medicine to help with the pain.

They admitted me to the hospital. My mom reached out to my oncology office to let him know what was going on. Obviously, I wasn't going to be at my next appointment, and the doctor responded with, “It's very, very rare, but the chemotherapy that she had can cause this. It happens in 1% of people. It's only happened maybe two other times.” So, they were like, “I guess it was the chemo.”

That's when I found out I was a part of the 1% population that side effects could happen to and now I kind of stick with it. Everything that I do, I'm like, “Is there side effects? Are there 1% side effects, because that's what's going to happen to me.”

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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