A Day in The Life of Taxol. Four Left To Go.

Tossing and turning all night long has exhausted me daily. I dream, then wake as my cheeks become engulfed in flames and it slowly spreads to the top of my head. A strange cool feeling hits my head as tiny pin prick beads of sweat burst forth from every hair follicle. I touch my head to see if I’m sweating. Sometimes I am, sometimes, I’m simply hot. I fan furiously with one hand and feel instant relief. However, the moment my hand stops, the heat hits me in full force. I can only wait it out and tear the blankets off. In a few minutes I’m freezing. It’s a nightly battle.

During the day I’m treated to the same experience, but it seems less often. My hat often finds itself left on a counter while I’m at home because I’m only moments away from tearing it off.

When the sun comes up or when I’m ready to drag my tired body out of bed, I step carefully. My feet are half asleep and half in pain. This seems to be worse with each treatment, but not bad enough to slow the treatments down..yet.  HOT FLASH!

On this morning, I needed to hop in the shower and try to get my baby brother and little girl moving. They both had school. I felt nervous. All day Sunday I could barely move off the couch. This latest round of Taxol seemed to mimic the Red Devil. This past week or two I have also needed assistance in opening a can of pop or pushing a heart burn pill out of the bubble packaging, since my fingernails are so painful. Initially, I thought it was the nail polish I had on, but now I realize this is the neuropathy rearing it's ugly head.

I began to feel more awake as the shower progress, but also like I could crawl back in bed. However, once out of the shower I was now completely awake. And yet, neither the 15 year old nor the 5 year old had moved an inch. Seriously?

We finally got moving, even with flu like aches and pains and this bloated ugly feeling. I pulled into my brother’s school parking lot and caught a glimpse of my eyebrows in the rear view mirror. They are almost gone and the bags under my eyes look even bigger. Perhaps because half of my eyelashes are gone they appear larger? I sped away to the Caribou to get an additional boost before going to my mom’s. My daughter starts school later than her uncle, so we eat breakfast there before she gets dropped off.

While she is at school I always have high expectations of doing this, writing. Or getting paperwork filled out, responding to emails, or any number of things I should get done, and I usually end up talking with my mother and not accomplishing much in the 2.5. hours she is gone. Or I have a doctor appointment during this time. This day was no different. Not feeling well, I decided to just sit there and talk while I waited for my little girl to be done with school.

Once she is loaded back into the car, we head back home and I can’t wait to just lay down. If I stand for too long I feel the color drain from my face. I don’t feel nauseated, but more like if I don’t sit back or lay down, I will end up sitting or laying down without my consent. My wonderful fiancé dresses up our kiddo in her snow pants and boots and coat and allows me to rest while they go sledding for an hour. She returns sweaty and red cheeked bringing me back to my own sledding days. Even the smell of her sweat from out door play is sweet to me.

Finally, after three days of feeling less than human, I start to feel the side effects from last week wane. I'm not feeling so well that I would dare touch a glass of liquor right now, but I can maybe make my own dinner tonight. I can drink something without pain emanating from my teeth when the cold liquid touches them. I can be less careful about grabbing things without worrying if I tore a nail off because they are no longer as painful and do not feel as fragile, though they likely are very fragile.

I will not be escaping the sweats though. One curious thing seems to be happening that I just noticed today, it looks as though my hair on the top of my head is growing, somewhat? Immediately I googled this oddity as I feared it meant that the chemo may not be working, or the cancer is stronger than the medicine. I felt relieved as I read others had encountered this same thing on Taxol. I know everyone reacts differently, even to different chemos, but it seemed like an odd thing to happen when my eyebrows are still coming out.

I do reflect on one positive from the last few days. I have been way too busy feeling cruddy to allow the news to stress me out. I review my phone less in those moments. Log in less to facebook, turn the tv on less to the news stations. 

It is exhausting sitting up, grabbing a remote, and turning the channel. I simply can't be bothered with that. This may be something I begin doing regardless of how I feel just to keep my sanity and my blood pressure at a normal rate.