Yesterday, I spelled out all the drugs I’m taking. But I didn’t really delve into how this weird handful of days, immediately following a chemo treatment, actually feels.
Overall, it’s like having really horrible case of the flu: all the aches, pains, blurriness, and disjointedness, but without the fever or congestion. I just feel … sick.
My internal sleep meter is out of whack, between lying around taking naps during the day and only managing 4 to 5 hours of proper sleep during the night. January in Boston is also cloudy, gray, and dark so daylight (such as it is) doesn’t help me gauge time.
Several of the drugs in my system make me feel fidgety. When I get to the top of the stairs, I feel adrenaline and fatigue simultaneously. I want to sit when I’m moving and move when I’m sitting.
And, in the midst of all these physical sensations and side effects bombarding me, I am aware. I know I’m bored and twitchy and impatient. I do feel time passing, more than ever before. Tomorrow is not given. I get that now. I feel that the rest of my life needs to mean something. If it’s going to be a short life, shorter than I realized, then I need to get busy.
Yet I am forced to sit and rest, and distract myself because I need to sit and rest to heal. This is perhaps my one chance to kick cancer’s ass and eliminate it from my life for good. My mind turns on that, too, struggling to parse and understand without counting the minutes.
medicinal sausage 