Kind of Odd

This has been an odd chemo outing in that I don't feel nearly as bad as I have in the past. Bad enough, mind you, but I don't feel like I've been poisoned. Today, for example, my only real complaint is that the Neulasta makes my legs and pelvis hurt. Yesterday I had one episode of severe nausea (just before lunch, natch) but otherwise, nothing. So why don't I feel worse than I do?

I have a theory.

We know that the chemo drugs preferentially kill the cells in my body that reproduce rapidly (often in the very act of reproduction, a touch right out of the Friday the Thirteenth movies where you know the first couple to have sex will be the first couple to die). These dead cells are broken down by the body's custodial workers and their various bits and pieces are put into the bloodstream for disposal. The kidneys filter the bits and pieces out and off they go, down the drain to wherever dead cancer cells go.

I theorize that the high level of cellular breakdown products in the bloodstream contributes considerably to the general feeling of slow death that comes with chemo. But as you start to run out of cancer cells to kill, there just isn't as much junk floating around in your bloodstream, and you just don't feel as bad.

There are people who would accuse me of being overly optimistic, because the basic premise of this theory is that I'm running out of cancer cells to kill, and there are people who would dismiss that as wishful thinking. And maybe it is, but I happen to like the idea that I'm running out of cancer cells. I don't like the siege mentality where you darkly suspect every quarter of your body of harboring renegade colonies of Reed-Sternberg cells; I'd rather imagine that my innards are just about squeaky-clean and cancer-free at this point. And if I have to invent bogus theories to buttress that belief, then by gum I will.