Bi-weekly torpor

Chemo is weird.

You go in for it, essentially prepping yourself for a several-day-long illness, kind of like a fortnightly flu. You don't particularly look forward to it, but you know you need to endure it, and you know it'll pass.

Thursday, I arrived at the doc's office fired up and ready for action! Talking a mile a minute, whooping and bragging over my continuing weight gain (144.5!!!), asking the nurse questions ("What does this drug name mean?" "Will I ever like the taste of alcohol again?", "Are some of the chemo patients you see really angry?", etc.)

Then I sat down and started to get the chemo. It goes just fine. But by nighttime, you feel a little bit like a robot powering down. I envision that silver droid from "Lost in Space" as his arms and head slowly lower and there's that futuristic de-powering "Vrooooooooooom" sound.

So, you just need to get lots of extra help and spend a lot of time laying low. You aren't in pain (hopefully), just tired, and you have a few annoying side effects. For me, most annoying is the "neuropathy" (the incessant slightly uncomforable tingling in my fingers and toes if i touch anything even REMOTELY cold). Sometimes, my hands even freeze up into these grotesque formations, where my fingers jut out and bend at odd angles, and they freeze that way, and I can't move them. It looks like I'm trying to pretend I have "zombie hands", except they are real. When I warm them up, they go back to normal. Otherwise, I can beat them against each other and they just whack together like two wooden blocks. Like petrified wood, from the crypt. Cuh-reep-y.

"Anyhoo!", you always snap out of your sluggishness after a few days, and soon enough you feel peppy and glad again. Then the cycle repeats. As I said, odd.

I'm happy to hang out here and recover. Main thing: I'm a-ok with all this, because it's working.

p.s.- I had two different endings written to this blog entry, but my mom, whom happens to be sitting next to me, forced me to change them. They were funny. But the humor was too dark. So. Let's end on an UP NOTE!! xoxoxo