14: Chemo Days 2-4

Todays chemo is at 0730. With traffic we need to leave the house by 0700. I told the girls to just drop me off today, Mom had meetings for work and Claire just needed some down time. The check in process goes much better today and Im in my chair hooked up to pre hydration by 8-815. I have a few visitors throughout the day which helps the time tick by. Im in a nicer room today, quiet, secluded, new. It seems as if today flys by because of yesterday being so long.

When I'm home its pretty much the couch or the bed for me. The fatigue is there and theres a bit of nausea but we have medication for that. What they dont tell you in ANY cancer or chemo literature is theres a potential side effect of hiccups and I have them, bad. Every treatment you meet with your pharmacist, so we told her about the hiccups, we switched some meds around to get them under control. It was a more comical side effect, but it didnt make it less any annoying and something someone should warn you about.

By the 4th day the chemo started ripping my mouth apart. Little pieces falling off everywhere. It feels like someone made you drink scalding hot coffee and swish with it. My tongue starts to taste funny and so does everything I eat. The abdominal pain, cramping, bloating, nausea has all hit, but no vomit yet, so win.

When you're going through this, your chemo days are real short, relatively speaking, but the feel forever long. You wake up, chemo is on the calendar so you head to the cancer center, and your home by 2. Its the next hours where the second hand seems to slow down on you. My minds going a million miles an hour because of the steroids, but my body cant do a thing because of the chemo. Screens become hard to look at because of the steroids, or it did for me anyway. So that means, no cell phone, no tv, no computer to fill the hours until you fall asleep again only to wake up for more chemo. This is the mental toughness part they talk about.

Wake up, chemo, fill the hours between 2-10, try to sleep. Repeat four times for desired effect.