a few words on chemo side effects

My body hates chemo. Luckily, Lumpy also hates chemo and is going away. I'm not talking about that, right now. I'm going to complain about the ugly side effects of chemo. If you need me to be cheery and such, then you  might want to redirect your reading.

Chemo is an Occam's razor for finding out which of my cells reproduce the fastest (since they are the ones targeted by the chemo). My hair cells were affected most obviously (and over my whole body, aside from eyebrows and eyelashes). My nails are tearing and breaking; they are normally really tough to cut. All of my mucous membrane stuff is affected. For the first week after chemo, I have a fairly constantly dripping nose.I get lots of bloody noses. I'm not even going to talk about the other body parts. Suffice it to say, this stuff is pretty gross. Even worse is my digestive ickiness, since all of the cells are badly affected by chemo.

For instance, did you know you can have constipation and diarrhea at the same time? I bet you didn't! Also, nerves in my fingers are being really lazy today and only sometimes sending movement signals. I bet you can imagine how fun it is to have your fingers not really moving when you have to urgently use a bathroom. Also, I want to share the irony of anti-nausea pills that increase my nausea (at least until it starts to work).

If I just had all of these symptoms, I'd be at the doctors now. Instead, the doctor's treatment is giving me all of these symptoms. I bet, in a 100 years, people will find this treatment ridiculous or inadequate, the way we find older medical treatments. At least I wasn't born a hundred years ago, as I wouldn't have lasted this long then. Yay, for medical advances!

chemo #3

Yesterday, I had my third chemo session. I have 3 more to go.

I'm exhausted. Mom and Athena came with me to the appointment. Again, my port didn't bleed, so it needed to be flushed.

I got a shot of something to shut down my ovaries. I can't remember the last time that I had an injection in my ass. I am kind of nervous about the chemo-induced menopause. I don't really have the energy to talk about that right now, though.

The doctor says the tumor is almost gone.

Today, I walked to the post office and got a bunch of fantastic care packages. Thanks! I was so tired, a friend had to pick me up and drive me four blocks home.

needle count: 24
touch count: 14