Tomorrow is normally the day I would be carted off to the oncology clinic to have my chemo treatment. Only, I've had all twelve treatments and it's over. So tomorrow represents a new thing: it will be the longest I've ever gone in the last six months without being poisoned. I'm curious to see how quickly I recover and I wonder what side effect will go away first. Will it be the angry colon? The fragile easily-broken fingernails? The neuralgia in my hands? The tingling in my feet? The chronic ache and fatigue in my legs? The icky taste in my mouth? The fact that I always have to be within 90 seconds of a bathroom no matter where I go?
Which will grow back first, my nose hair, armpit hair, or pubic hair? And why would those three sets of hair fall completely out, but not my chest and arm hair? If anything my chest hair seemed to gain momentum; every time I yanked the dressing off my port, which is located in the upper right part of my chest, the tape seemed to pull out at least 20,000 hairs that were in turn connected to 20,000 exquisitely sensitive nerve endings.
It's hard to tell that it's been two weeks since my last chemo. After a while they become cumulative in effect and I still feel pretty bad from the last one, even now. Perhaps the best way (the most graphic way, certainly) to express this is to point out that I've had to make eleven emergency trips to the bathroom so far today, and the day is far from over. And that's been going on for six months. No wonder my colon hurts.
I have literally no idea of what to expect - but I do know that I'm just as happy to not have to get a fresh dose of chemo tomorrow.
Is That All?
11 years ago
3 comments:
Come on, William, it took them six months to poison you up to this point! Wouldn't it just wreck their sad little souls if you got un-poisoned in two weeks? I'm sure you're going to be feeling better every day from here on.
I think I already feel better, so Madame Hooch at the chemo clinic may be bumming. Actually, I doubt that I really feel better physically, but not having to go to chemo today produced such an unbearable lightness of being my legs could probably be soaked in lighter fluid and set afire and I'd still think they felt better!
After what you've been through, lighter fluid might be an improvement.
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