This time around was so-so -- pretty awful three or four days following, but I bounced back much more quickly than last time, and most of my body parts stayed attached this time, so looking back it seems much better than Round Three.
I was in Seattle last week, but mostly I was just in the Marriott Springhill Suites. I did my usual dash-to-San-Fran, see Melissa and Tillie, get chemo, and dash back routine. Chemo ran longer than usual so I was late getting to the airport, and I had to play the "cancer card" in order to get on the flight. I'm experimenting with playing this card, which for a long time I felt guilty pulling out....but not so much anymore! The balder and sicker I get, the more I feel within my rights to pull off my hat and say "Well, I'm sorry you don't have any aisle seats available, but I've just had a chemotherapy session and if you put me by the window I'm going to throw up on the passenger in the aisle seat."
Anyway, I made it back to Seattle and crashed for the next four days. The heartburn has been greatly helped by the Nexium -- less an intense pain and more an irritating discomfort. I had a vicious headache on Day 2, which made me really nauseous, but a quick call to Garrett scored me some lovely drugs that sent me off to la-la land.
I feel compelled to note here that I am once again enchanted with Garrett the oncologist. Apparently a "little bird" with a big mouth (aka my mother) told him about my blog, and he read my previous post where I had bashed him so thoroughly. So he walked into the exam room bemoaning the loss of our love...I blushed a lot and laughed a lot and tried to back-peddle my way out of it, to no avail. But he was so thoroughly charming about the whole thing, and so encouraging about my future treatments, and so lovely and kind about me as a patient (for this was my last chemo with him), that I left as enchanted about him as I ever have been. Additionally, he promised never to use "Icky" as a chemo adjective again.
Back to Day 2. So, headaches, some nausea, some heartburn, blah blah blah. I sipped gatorade and water and nibbled saltines and cheese and yogurt (lots and lots of yogurt...I'm developing a hatred for yogurt...) for a few days, and then started to slowly, bit by bit, feel better. I was able to eat coconut prawns and white chocolate cake by the following Monday night, my first (and last!) night out in Seattle, which was a real treat.
The fact that I haven't had any additional ailments post-chemo has been lovely -- no infections, no sores, no injuries or viruses or rashes or anything. I think between my newfound knowledge of how to avoid these things and the pretty fierce anti-viral medication I now take every day (along with the eighty-six other pills I shove down my throat), my body is managing to remember that it is a body and not a petri dish.
I have no photos from this go-round, but I am definitely balder than Tillie, and not any skinnier. That's about it. I promise to update my "On the Road" section soon, and post lots of stories about what I've been doing in my life OTHER than chemo. Also, as a teaser: I will tell the electrifying story of how I made it across the Canadian border sans passport.
Next up: my first round of taxotere, this Monday, 11/9, at Duke in Raleigh. (Being a Wake Forest alum, I really hate having to go to Duke for treatments. I'm going to lie if they ask me where I went to college...don't want them putting Draino in my IV.)