"...and did we mention that this one may make you grow tentacles?" - Michelle the Chemo Nurse
So I started the chemotherapy Thursday, and I was fine (tho jittery as all get
out) until the last 10 minutes of treatment - then the big wave of nausea crashed. It's the first time that I couldn't sleep during the treatment. I was wired to the gills, so I listened to music and wiggled the whole six hours. It was pretty awful, actually. Kevin went off to work, and next time I'm going to have friends tag team, so at least I have someone to talk to. Some of the time I was so jittery I could only listen to half a song. The play list ended up pretty weird - something with a strong beat helped, and I think that banjos and drums affect a different part of the brain than other instruments - so lots of bang-jos and drums. I'll try to remember to post the play list at some point, just to gross all of you out...
I confess I wasn't expecting the chemo to hit me quite this hard, this early. Didn't sleep much on Thursday night, and still jumping out of my skin. I talked to the on-call doc on Friday, and he said it could be a reaction to the steroid (good!) rather than the chemo drugs. This is hopeful, because I can probably cut out the steroid - can't very well cut out the chemo drugs themselves - gee, doc, can I have a cocktail that doesn't include any of the stuff that's actually supposed to fix this, but only the stuff that you are giving me for side effects? I'm afraid that's not quite how it works.
I did muster up the energy to take Tess out Halloween shopping on Friday. They had a teacher in-service day (PT conferences next week) so they got Halloween off. How cool is that? So we went to Ross Dress for Less, which I've decided is my new favorite Halloween store. The imp went as an evil prom queen - with this fabulous glitzy tango dress - and her first real pair of high heels. And black lipstick. She's right on that magic edge between kid and teenager, and has wonderful qualities of both - not to mention that when she and all the rest are sixteen they are going to stop traffic. Are these kids unusually beautiful, or am I biased?
I didn't actually really drop the ipod in the loo, I just came close. I was listening to music on the ipod; IV in my arm. Sometimes switching to the laptop for a different music mix - wertperch uses the ipod more, so it's mostly his music; and a BP cuff on the OTHER arm because they were monitoring a problem with one of the drugs. A wire for every extremity, and then some. So in order to go the restroom, it was a fairly big ordeal. Remove the BP cuff, unwrap the blankets, get my shoes back on, disconnect from the computer, unplug the chemo pump, and then stagger across the room while wheeling the pump, which has wheels that were clearly designed by the same people who make shopping carts. No two wheels of the five are supposed to go in the same direction at the same time. Don't ask me why, it's just they way they are made. I just put the ipod on top of the pump, rather than spending more time untangling yet another wire. And sure enough, when I got into the restroom, the little bugger tried HARD to leap into the toilet. I caught it, thank goodness.
Update: now in day four, I'm feeling slightly more human again. STILL jittery - if anyone ever needed to study for a test, this whatever-it-is blows No-Doze right out of the water. I offered to finish Therese's dissertation for her.
Special thank yous to those of you sending the 3 am e-mails. Reading them is my best way to cope - keep 'em coming.
Love,
grundy