Day Two

Day Two of ESHAP chemotherapy is in the books, and do I feel like crap? Let me count the ways!

We gots nausea. We gots whole-body ache as though I've got the flu again. My hands shake. My diarhhea is growing significantly worse again. I'm about as tired as that nameless Greek who ran all the way from Marathon before allegedly dropping dead. The usual, in other words, no better and no worse than I expected.

But here's the fun part: I'm already starting to have strange mental symptoms. My wife bought me from frozen chimichangas (yes, heresy to the foodies, but I like them) and told me they were in the refrigerator. I started looking for them and couldn't find them, even though they were right in front of my eyes - as near as I can recollect matters, I was looking for something that looked like eggplants, not chimichangas.

The last time I went through ESHAP I developed several bizarre mental aberrations that lasted for days. I couldn't turn to the left. If I wanted to turn to the left, I had to turn 270 degrees to the right. It wasn't that something said "No, you can't turn to the left." It was more the case that I had forgotten that I had a left side at all. All directions to me were right, in the same way that at the North Pole, all directions are south. I also developed the strange idea that Bobby Flay and I were sharing a communal digestive tract and that every time I had to bolt to the bathroom, it was to equalize pressure with Bobby Flay's part of the digestive tract (that is, is was all his damn fault. Sorry, Bobby). These weren't dreams, these were bizarre mental fixations that lasted for several days. (I also lost the ability to read but didn't realize it for a while).

This time, I was lying in bed last night, trying to sleep, when I suddenly and quite consciously became convinced that my skin had detached from my body in a single sheet and had adhered to the sheets. Only by lying in a specific way and pulling the covers up just so could I realign my skin so it would reattach itself to my body.

I have to say, chemo is pretty bad, but these strange Lovecraftian touches are kind of amusing and interesting, at least by the light of day.