This Is Your Brain On Chemo

This is your brain on chemo. Well, technically, my brain on chemo. Note the general air of seediness and disrepair about my person. Note the hairline, which is racing up and over the top of my head and heading for the back of my neck with great speed. Note the complete absence of large swollen tumors on the side of my neck which made me look a bit like someone with a bunch of tennis balls stuck in his throat. Note the dull look in my eye, which typically sets in about halfway through the Big Fun Bag of dacarbazine. Not so visible are the increasingly pronounced cheekbones and chin that serve to highlight the fact that I've lost roughly 50 pounds since this rodeo started back in December. Oh, and my moustache is falling out too, just not as quickly as my increasingly wispy and insubstantial hair. And here's a curio: I haven't shaved in a week, yet I show no particular sign of stubble. Chemo is wild stuff.

Chemo happens. But not without difficulty, some of it caused by the blood cell counting machine at the oncology clinic, and some of it caused by getting authorization from the new insurance company to proceed. Once you add white blood cell boosters to chemo, it gets pretty dang expensive, and insurance becomes not just a good idea but an actual necessity. For a time it looked like it chemo wasn't going to happen at all, but Jean and the insurance billing coordinator at the clinic managed to get through to the right people in India (the insurance provider apparently outsourced its call center to India) who then approved of everything.

I guess the short story is that thanks to Jean and the insurance coordinator, everything got worked out, and my oncologist figured it was safe to proceed without a CBC so long as they dosed me with Neulasta again. My bones hurt already, a dull and apparently meaningless ache that Tylenol never seems to touch. I'm tired, but the ache in my legs and pelvis make it difficult for me to sleep. A fresh refill of pain pills later this evening should bring blessed albeit somewhat sweaty relief. Anyone got any idea why Percocet makes me sweat?