Soon-to-be three days down, only 60 to go for my chemo treatment.
Today in the chair I brought along my father-in-law, Bruce, to accompany me for this chemo party. I can only imagine he wanted to come along because there's nothing more fun and upbeat to kick off a Wednesday than accompanying a 28-year-old to a chemo appointment.
So far, chemo hasn't been terrible, but I don't really know what to expect. The small army of nurses I've been dealing with are like presidential candidates with their candor. The first one said, "You're doing very well! The first few treatments are the worst, you should be fine!" This is precisely what I wanted to hear. The second one, the few sentences she did end up muttering to me, told me "The first week is a cake walk. You usually don't get an idea of symptoms and side effects until the end of the first week or early next week." Yikes...that's not confidence-inspiring, but I appreciate your directness in letting me know what to expect. The third one today took the middle road, saying that it varies. I feel like some sort of soon-to-be bald Goldilocks trying to read philosophical meaning into the three bears' porridge.
All in all, my side effects haven't been horrible so far. There has been slight nausea, but not anything that has had me close to being physically ill. My wife and I are taking two-mile walks together each night to gripe about our days (I currently have the distinct advantage in griping), and my hair has managed to withstand the first two days of chemo (although it's supposed to do so for 16 days before falling out...at which point I already have a new winter beanie ordered and should arrive at my house with plenty of buffer time. Of course, I'll only be wearing the beanie when my wig is dirty and I need to throw it in the washing machine).
Really, the worst side effect so far has been what chemo is doing to my taste buds. I'll preface this with a short explanation.
My wife, Lauren (I feel the need for explanation since there are a few people reading this blog that don't know me personally), and I are two of the most indecisive people I know when it comes to picking something to make for dinner or a restaurant to eat at. This has become such an issue that I have created a sort of philosophical question to try and elicit a response (it works with 5 percent success). I'll ask "If you had a box with a button on it, and you pushed that button, lifted up the box and the most appealing food in the world would be inside, what would be in it?" With chemo, if I had such a box, nothing would be inside. I wake up and force myself to eat something, and absolutely nothing sounds good. Everything tastes relatively the same (all chemo-y), I'm eating smaller portions and I'm starting to see how people base a lot of their food decisions on consistency...I've never eaten so much pudding, mashed potatoes and other soft foods in my life. Never being a consistency eater (I'm about as non-discriminatory when it comes to food consistency as a catfish), I'm actually looking forward to what this introduction into an "only-food-consistency" mindset will do to me once this chemo is all over. I assume I'll be deep-fat-frying all food from then-on-out in corn flakes just to get away from cottage cheese and whatnot, but who knows? Maybe I'll find a middle ground, like Macaroni Balls at Cheesecake Factory. That doesn't sound good to me now, but I think back fondly on how good that used to sound to me.
So, physically I'm doing good. Mentally, I think, I'm doing even better. I think these horrible kind of experiences need to happen to everyone in medium intervals to just remind us not to be so complacent with our lives. It doesn't matter how much "Carpe Diem" stuff we read or hear...chances are, three weeks after being motivated to make every moment count, you're going to be right back on that couch watching "Jersey Shore" reruns and trying to pinpoint the exact moment that each character lost their mind. With regular, jarring events, I might be able to actually live a carpe diem life and start making the most out of every day. Of course, I'd also be jittery as shit...like a fainting llama owned by by someone with frequent night terrors. There's an extreme to trying to live every day to its fullest potential...my boss would likely get tired of me coming into work barefoot and trying to fly a kite in our parking lot for several hours each day in-between climbing trees. I think going through a cancer thing like this is going to give me that perfect balance...it will make me feel grateful to return to work and be able to work a full day, and it will also motivate me to do stuff on the weekend rather than watch "Shawshank Redemption" on television for 5 hours (because TNT has 5-minute commercial breaks) even though I own the DVD and I'm just too darn lazy to find it, put it in and watch it. That's one of the upsides to cancer...curing TV limbo habits.
The other upside to cancer? It is, no joke, the ultimate excuse for everything you can imagine. I show up to work yesterday 5 hours late wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Why? Because I've got cancer, dammit, that's why...and my co-workers commend me for coming in at all. I eat a bowl of mashed potatoes and my wife praises me for my dedication like I just ran a marathon. I'm pretty sure I could get out of any speeding ticket, talk my way out of any situation or get excused from doing any sort of work just by dropping the "C-card." My nurse, no joke, told me the first day that I needed to stay out of the kitchen while my wife was cooking or after she got done cooking because the smells could make me nauseous. To me, that sounds like permission to not cook or clean for three months (until my wife reads this and makes me empty the dish washer).
It would be really easy to get all bummed out about this "cancer thing" and milk it for sympathy, but that just doesn't seem reasonable. My cure rate with chemo is 95-98%. My hair will grow back, but I've always wondered what I would look like bald (now I just need to catch a disease that forces me to grow a creepy moustache...something I think would be hysterical, but my wife absolutely vetoes). I've always wondered what going through chemo would be like, and now I'm able to get a first-hand experience. I've never been given so many baskets of candy and cookies in my life, and I'm a huge fan of sweets. I'd have to say, if you're able to look past the nausea and uncertainty and fear and everything of cancer, there's a silver lining. And it's full of great excuses and containers of pudding.
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