Although technically chemotherapy is the ingestion of any drug as treatment of any condition, the term chemotherapy is generally used to discuss the treatment of cancer with medications.  Most chemotherapy works on the premise that cancer cells are undergoing cell division more rapidly than most of the non-cancer cells in the body, and chemotherapy drugs usually target some aspect of cell replication and division.  The theory is that by damaging cells which are in the process of replication more cancer cells will be damaged and killed than normal cells.  Many chemotherapy side effects are predictable in that they are manifest mostly in the normal body cells that also have a rapid turnover rate.  Examples of these types of cells re the bone marrow blood cell precursors and the gastrointestinal tract lining cells.  Other chemotherapy side effects are more specific to the various chemotherapy drugs and drug classes.   This article will be limited to the more common chemotherapy side effects that are common to several classes of chemo agents.…