Fatigue
There have been questions about how patients should expect to feel during treatment and about how long fatigue may last. Unfortunately, there is no "one-size-fits-all" answer. It depends on many factors, including the type of treatment you are receiving, the stage of your disease, the status of your overall health, your age, and - in my humble opinion - your luck, something no doctor would ever say. Let me explain what I mean by that.
When I was undergoing CHOP + R, I was in my early 50's, in good overall health other than lymphoma, and yet I suffered many of the side effects everyone hopes to avoid. At the same time I was being treated and battling the side effects, I met a woman who was undergoing the same treatment who had no side effects whatsoever, and even said that the treatment energized her. She was 83!!! Why did she breeze through treatment and I didn't? My only explanation was luck.
The point is that there is no way to predict how each individual will respond. Certainly cancer related fatigue is very real and very common. Simply having NHL causes stress which leads to fatigue, and if you undergo months of chemotherapy, fatigue certainly increases, and it may last beyond treatment for weeks or even months.
On the other hand, radioimmunotherapy spares healthy cells and does not require months of debilitating treatment, so it does not cause the fatigue that chemo does. Recovery is much faster and easier.
Whatever treatment you take, fatigue diminishes as you improve physically. Exercise and a healthy diet will speed the process.
Betsy