The first 2 days I don't feel anything because I'm so full of steroids that how I feel doesn't match the cadaverous-looking person staring back at me in the mirror. Then the muscle and bone pains come. If they get too bad, there's always oxycodone, but driving is a no-no.
The first let's call it a "week" (although it could be more or less than 7 days) I sleep a lot, sometimes 12 hours a day, and feel nauseous and don't want to get up off the couch. I know when I'm getting into the next "week" because I start getting cabin fever.
The second "week" I stop sleeping more than 4-5 hours a night. I get nosebleeds and hemhorroids (TMI, I know) and breathe heavily just going up the stairs. I start thinking about walking, doing yoga and writing in my blog. The informative word here is "thinking." I constantly check my scalp to see if 1) any more hairlets are falling out, and 2) any more hairlets are growing. I check in the shower to see if I still don't need to shave my pits or bikini area. (We're all friends here, aren't we?) I can eat more regularly.
The third "week" I begin to dread the coming chemo. I obsess about what's going on with those chemicals in my body. I worry about what will (happily) be temporary and what will end up being permanent. I fret about time and getting things done in preparation for the coming "week #1." I worry that I'm not nice enough to my kids or giving them enough attention, structure, values, information, love, fun, etc.
And with each chemo session, something new comes up. After the first one, obviously, there's the loss of hair and depression that goes with it. I also noticed a terrible smell a few days after, coming from me. After the second I developed folliculitis, a fancy name for ingrown hairs that is very painful. Some of them swell up to the size of quarters.
After this third one I noticed a huge increase in chemo brain. I joked about it before, but now it's a real thing. I forget people's faces and names, what I was talking about, how to spell things. I remind myself of my father after his stroke when he could explain what he was looking for, describe what it looked like and its function, but he couldn't come up with the name. I have to be really careful when I keyboard because I make lots of mistakes. I lose my balance a lot and I've fallen a couple of times. My skin also feels strange, as if there's a layer of water or something between my skin and my nerves. And my taste has been affected. Nothing tastes right. Water tastes like metal as does coffee and chocolate. Things that have a really sharp flavor like mustard are easier to get down than bland things. I can drink diet 7-up and water if it has lime in it. Licorice is the only thing that tastes "good." And my teeth hurt. There's a huge food trap that's opened up on my upper left and everything gets caught in it. If it doesn't get flossed before I eat again, it's very painful.
I feel like I've gone from seeing cancer as the enemy to seeing chemo as the enemy. I worry that the "cure" is as bad as the disease. And what kind of damage am I doing to myself by having it? I really understand how people can say that they'd never do it again. If this comes back, I probably would go through it again, but I can understand how there are some who won't. Chemo is like its own disease, a disease of little losses. Well, some of them are big, like hair. But it seems like each time you get chemo, you lose something else.
Here are the benefits of chemo:
I haven't had to wax my mustache or pluck my eyebrows or chin hair since February
Every time I go grocery shopping, they fall all over themselves helping me to the car
I have a bunch of fancy, new, long scarves to play with later
I don't have to put on or take off mascara every day
I've saved money on salon days
I don't feel guilty for parking as close to something as I can get
People are nice to me even when I'm grouchy
I'm sure there are others, but I need to go eat some licorice now.
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