Half way! Feeling good on the eve of Chemo #3. Well, “good” is relative. Not in the hospital, no fever. Painful body jolts have reduced to occasional twitches -- jolts will start up again this weekend. Panic is mostly in check, though I keep the Ativan close. There are many ways to worry about dying: as a result of chemo in the short term; despite chemo in the long term. I’d pretty much settled in to the fact my body is waiting to kill me; after a brain aneurysm hemorrhage in 2002, I know I have a second aneurysm just hanging out in my head. Biding its time. I have it scanned every year, and it hasn’t grown, but theoretically, that could change. One good thing about cancer – I hardly think about my aneurysm at all these days.
I’ve gone through a second round of hair exodus. I lost a lot of the fuzz on my head, and my eyebrows are thinning, but holding on. Eyelashes fell out, very inconveniently, into my eyes. You know that trick where you grab your upper eyelid by the lashes and pull it over your lower lid, to sweep an irritant out of your eye? I didn’t intend to pull out my eyelashes, but that’s what happened.
We just had a very nice week at the cabin, where the late-season snow was a good excuse for more fires in the wood stove. The migrating birds are coming back. The woods are jumping with activity.
I go for walks with Bob and the dog. I get tired. I’m a little wobbly. This far into the last chemo cycle, I’m not needing a nap every day, but some days. I iced my fingertips during the last infusion of the Taxotere, which is the more toxic of the two chemo drugs I get. That is supposed to prevent the poison from being taken up by that tissue, thereby avoiding neuropathy and pain side effects. It’s not a scientifically proven technique, and I didn’t do it the first round – and I did experience some numbness and significant fingernail sensitivity. After I iced the second round, I’ve had no symptoms in my fingertips. My hands still cramp and ache like the rest of my body, but overall, the icing seems worth it.
I’ve had very little nausea, but that comes with a general disinterest in food. I feel a bit off. Eating will sometimes set off a series of stomach cramping and gastric distress, which is pretty much eliminated if I vape pot before eating. The pot tastes like burnt ass, though, so the benefits are not without challenges.
That’s a pretty accurate account of every fucking thing to do with chemo. “The benefits are not without challenges.”
I keep testing my memory and cognition by playing a word game on my phone. There are six letters provided, which make up the words in an empty crossword puzzle that the player must fill in. If my brain is working, I can get through the puzzle easily. When the letters are S T A C O E and I can’t find “taco,” I worry that my brain is gone and never coming back. I don’t have any memory of TV shows we watched just last week, even as I watch them a second time. I feel like I’ve maybe seen some scenes in previews, but most of it is new again. That said, Veep is absolutely hilarious this season, and worth watching more than once.
I take Ambien every night. Better to sleep through the night than spend that time thinking about death. I’ll detox off of the sleeper as I’m detoxing off everything else. Starting June 1, we rebuild.