Chronically Gross

Here’s the thing about chemotherapy…it attacks the fastest growing cells first; which is why it works so well at killing cancer cells. Those suckers grow like crazy. But hair and skin are also fast growing cells, which again, is why hair falls out and skin breaks down.

Scar tissue is, duh, skin. So yeah.

I had chemo on Tuesday. By Thursday, my incision was oozing. It’s gross. I saw my surgeon yesterday. He packed the incision with gauze (again…GROSS!) and put me on two antibiotics and some probiotics for the next ten days.

He also wants Tom to pack my incision each day with new gauze. Poor Tom.

Thankfully, he’s not all that squeamish. He’s more worried about hurting me than about the grossness of the process of packing the incision. But still, so gross. (And for the record, he didn’t hurt me, he was very gentle.)

I know this is just par for the course. We just have to keep on keeping on and next week will be better. My energy will come back, my incision will stop seeping. I will sleep better and my stomach won’t hurt all the time.

I know all this logically but while I sit here with the corner of a gauze pad stuffed inside an opening in my body (seriously, SO FREAKING GROSS) and know that for the next ten or so days, my dear, loving, kind, generous, over-worked husband will have to replace that gauze daily, well, I’m just feeling a little sorry for myself.

It must be the Friday after chemo.