It's hard to even remember most of last week to be perfectly honest. I will not forget the last round itself. First of all, my wonderful cousin, Tami, joined me this round. We had a wonderful time making the doctor laugh and each other. My cousin Tami has a strange interest with the medical profession that stops short of actually being in the medical profession. After they had inserted the IV into my port (which merely writing about this is making want to throw up a little bit) she told me how they were taking my blood. I figured she told me because I wasn't looking. I gave her the look of death and said, "Hey, I'm not looking for a reason." Our banter just continued from there, surely entertaining the entire staff as we went.
In the doctor's office we began to discuss all that ailed me. Somewhere the question of radiation and hair loss came up. My mom had wondered if radiation would also cause hair loss because my older brother Jake had hair loss as a child from it. He did not have chemo back then. The doctor explained that it would cause hair loss in the area that the radiation is being applied, so my hair would start to grow (on my head) once the chemo was over, even during the radiation. He added, "So because your radiation is on the breast, you will have nothing to worry about." I couldn't help myself but to respond, "Unless I have a hairy chest." The conversation went downhill from there.
Tami continued to make jokes to which I would remind her she was a terrible support system. It's family, we have to ride each other. Once more I received the suite, but not until after the blood test was delivered. (If I haven't mentioned it previously, it's the suite because it's in the corner, more private, and larger than other infusion stations) My blood work is finally starting to show signs of the chemo. Some things were too high and some things were too low. Most things I didn't understand, but since the doctor had no worries, than I wasn't going to worry. He did tell me I was getting a great nurse. I thought that meant most experienced, but I'm thinking it meant new. The whole round felt more of everything. She was very nice, but everything seemed harder.
I'm having such a difficult time writing about this moment. I'm sitting here feeling all of the blood leave my face and my mouth water. Perhaps I should move on. I'll come back to this later if I'm up to it.
The side effects also didn't go very smoothly. The exhaustion level shot through the roof. This is the first time I can handle sitting at my desk at home. It's also insane to me how I have such a hard time remembering things, not bumping into things or dropping things, saying things without my tongue getting in the way, thinking of the thing to say, but not being able to get it out. I would get angry and want to say fuck, but it would come out fluck. This would only make me escalate to a higher level of anger and I would want to hit something. However, I don't want to break anything of mine. It was hard enough trying not to break things by accident.
Poor Kevin, having to not only deal with my venty meltdowns, but he was likely on overload with helping me do things because this round rivaled the first in nausea.
We had friends come over Friday night. I was determined to be okay. It was Christmas weekend. Every 5 to 15 minutes I would have to sit down or lay down on the couch. The evening did not last long and I felt guilty not being able to entertain my guests. Which is totally ridiculous as I'm going through chemo and they completely understood that.
I made it through my mom's party on Saturday and Kevin's family today. I was just starting to come out of the exhaustion and nausea fog when suddenly a cold has reared it's ugly head and here I sit, typing away, waiting for the Nyquil to kick in.
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