I wasn't terribly happy when I tried to google BEP for additional info on my chemo cocktail (bleomycin, etoposide, platinum) and the first search result is Black Eyed Peas. I pity the poor soul that is legimiately worried about chemotherapy treatmetn and with tears in their eyes and a great deal of fear googles BEP and is inundated with Mr. Fergie and his rag tag group of Matrix characters putting together garbage music. (Fergie's a woman? No joke? She looks like she might smell like my shoes after running 5 miles without socks.)
I'm back in the chair again today, doing my Bleomycin...bright and early at 8 a.m. After writing my post yesterday, I went back to work and finally experienced my first signs of nausea around 4 p.m. yesterday (I've started keeping a notebook full of side effects, keeping my fingers crossed for "Moon Face" or "Sausage toes.") Fortunately, I've come to the realization that I've learned more in college than I thought I had, and it transfers directly to my chemo treatment.
Have you ever had one of those nights where you just rage, say yes to every shot that's bought for you and end up falling asleep somewhere strange? Uh, yeah, me neither, but just for hypothetical sake, let's say I wake up in a canoe, shake the glitter out of my hair, wash the Sharpy moustache off my face and start going about my day. That feeling you have, where you constantly re-evaluate your body and say, "Do I feel like I'm going to throw up? Maybe I should just throw up. Is this going to go away? Am I going to throw up this morning?"...that's exactly what chemo is like. It's that feeling, but so far for me, it's been so moderate that I just take one of my anti-nausea pills and it's gone in about half an hour. If I hadn't spent time drinking in college and battling through the next morning, I wouldn't know where my limit was and my nausea chart would be in complete chaos. So, in a weird way, I owe some apologies to college friends that I yelled at the day after, accusing them of forcing me to drink too much.
I've got a new room today, this one facing a lovely brick wall on the other side of the hospital, where I'm sure other patients are excited to state at my window and brick wall. It comes complete with another non-dead plant (which gives me comfort) and all the coffee I can drink.
I also have a new nurse today, who isn't nearly as talkative as the one yesterday was. I tried to engage her in some light conversation, but she seems distracted (a frightening trait to have your nurse possess in my position). She came in and asked if I still had my port in. Having just had it put in last Thursday, I assured her that, yes, I had not dug it out of my chest prison-style. She seemed somewhat annoyed when she went to hook up my bag and noticed just a bump on my bruised skin. Apparently, she was referring to the needle with tube hanging off of it that had been stuck in me yesterday. I wasn't aware that some people keep that thing dangling out their chest when they leave each day, just begging to drip blood all over their bed when they roll over weird in their sleep. No thanks.
I had a new needle popped in and started sippin' on bleo.
So far, the chemo hasn't seemed to slow me down much. I got about as much work done yesterday as I normally do (although much of it was from the hospital), and I went to my EMT class last night and lasted OK. I found it was difficult to concentrate, mostly because I've started to pay almost constant attention to my body, surveying it for changing signs that I'm about to get sick. So far, the light onset of nausea symptoms I've experienced have been thoroughly slapped down with my prescription anti-nausea pills (where I imagine a "Ric Flair WHOOOO" being shouted as my body smacks down the urge to vomit), due in part to this constant monitoring. I'm worried about getting caught up in a lecture on stomach trauma and suddenly realize that I'm going to barf all over the hospital lecture hall. That doesn't inspire confidence in putting me in an ambulance for clinicals, so I'm trying to avoid that.
Other than that, chemo's going pretyy good so far. I'm still the youngest person in the chemo ward (thus the reason why nobody has taken me up on my offer for "flip cup chemo" or a race down the hallway dragging our IVs) and I'm kind of digging all this free time I can use to play video games and update blogs on my sperm and white blood cell count. Of course, it's kind of awkward when my mom tells me she printed out my blog post about me talking about my sperm (http://lessthannuts.blogspot.com/2011/09/testicular-cancer-excuse-for-people-to.html ) and shared it with people in her office. Having a mother proud of a son talking about sperm is, I imagine, is like having a kid that smears crap on the walls with a mother bragging about how much of an artist he is. It's nice setting the parental expectations bar low.
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