The Chemo Diaries

Chemo Diaries
For posterity I thought I’d write up a bit of what life was like after the second round of chemo. Just to remind myself, I looked back at how the first round went.

Round 1:
Day of chemo: High from the anti-nausea meds. No real effects of the chemo felt. I walked six laps around our yard (one square acre) grooving to the music on my old phone.
Day one after: Felt rundown, as if I were coming down with a cold or the flu. General tiredness. Left work after six hours.

Day two after: Still rundown, a little achy. Noticed my incision had started to seep a little. Ick. Worked nine hours this day.

Day three after: Woke up at 4am feeling blood/fluid running down my side from my incision. Totally stressed over this. Walked into my surgeon’s office as they opened that morning. They said was fine, normal, told me to keep it covered with gauze. At this point, I should have taken stock out in the gauze industry.

By Saturday, which would have been day four after chemo, I was feeling pretty good. I managed to go to the grocery store, take the girls to lunch and only had to rest a bit when we got home.

Round 2 was harder. So much harder.
Day of chemo: Not high at all from the anti-nausea meds. Bummer. Instead, the feelings of tiredness and general yuck started right after the infusion ended. Boooo!
Day one after: Woke up five times to pee in the night. Each time I laid back down I had to curl into a ball to try and settle my stomach. Managed to get through eight hours at work. Go me.

Day two after: Still tired, still achy, still sort of sick to my stomach. The anti-nausea pills my nurse prescribed help but not much. Weird taste (not exactly metallic) and what feels like a film in my mouth. Just all around feeling sort of gross. My hair started falling out today.

Day three after: Okay, so my stupid incision is bleeding…again. Not the normal day to day seepage but actual blood this time. Yeah, it must be the Friday after chemo. Damn it. Spent some time in the surgeon’s office again. This time, I’ve been advised to start packing gauze into my now-open wound. Yay. One more gross thing my poor husband has to do for me. Hair still thinning but not too bad yet.

Day four after: Still tired. Still queasy. Make it through lunch with my mom and Liv (Lyss is in Defiance for an honors choir.) Wore a hat to town even though hair isn’t too thin yet.

Day five after: Go to Defiance to watch Alyssa sing. She’s so beautiful. I love that she gets to do these things. I’m also so grateful that she has friends whose parents are so awesome to pick her up and take her to the practices for this sort of thing without me having to ask. I eat Lemon Heads and mints to counteract the feeling of yuck in my mouth. Indigestion is a near constant battle. Somehow, I managed to avoid heartburn through two pregnancies and now…it feels like chemo has decided to make up for that. Hair thinner still…wearing a hat constantly now.

Day six after: Took Olivia to a dentist appointment. While walking around the mall afterward with her, I was so tired. Needed to get some strawberry lemonade to buck up and get from one end of the mall to the other. Hair…still there but starting to get annoying.

Day seven after: Happy birthday to me. My hair is driving me freaking crazy. It’s poking and stabbing and just…ugh. Oh yes, and joy of joys, today was my first day of experiencing the dreaded diarrhea. Wheee!!! No birthday pie for me. So sad.

Day eight after: Okay, seriously with the hair. I can’t stand it. It’s everywhere, it’s stabby, it’s annoying. I’m approaching Gollum status. Not only is the heartburn still here and the occasional feeling of just yuck, this hair thing is making even the best moments feel icky. My mom offers to use Tom’s clippers and just cut it all off. We go for it and oh my goodness, the freedom I felt the moment she was done. There is still a very short bit of hair left, sort of like Velcro for my hats but it feels so much better I can’t even describe it. I still slept with a hat on because the ‘velcro’ hair still on my head kept catching on my pillow. But even that was not a bother considering I know longer have strands long enough to poke out my hats. I don’t have to clean out my hats when I get home. I can shower without feeling like I’m attempting to wash a shedding dog with piles of hair on my hands and in the bottom of the shower. Whew, just…relief.

Day nine after: Still moments of general tiredness or feeling less than great but mostly good.

And now we wait another week and a few days for the next chemo. Until then…