“From chemo to chemo”—the temporal paradox of chemotherapy

Abstract

Purpose To uncover the experience of time in women undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Methods A combination of consensual qualitative research and Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenology. Results The key phenomenon found and pre-reflectively organizing the patients’ experience was the temporal paradox of chemotherapy—a sense of both acceleration and deceleration in between chemotherapy sessions that desynchronizes patients with the time of others. Conclusion The experienced paradoxes concentrating around the timings of the chemotherapy treatments are of particular relevance for supportive care. It is particularly important to acknowledge the disturbing effect of the cyclical nature of chemotherapy.