Doctors, nurses, other patients, survivors ... everyone warned me that chemo is cumulative. I didn't fully understand, or feel, what that means until this point in this round - because the only things that help me are water and sleep.

These are the days I want to describe with the most accuracy, and they are the ones I remember the least - and for me, that's probably for the best.

I keep thinking - hoping, really - that this sideways motion will get easier because I've done it three times before. But it doesn't. I am anxious and I am resentful, and I want to hurry up and get out the other side.

Insomnia: check. Restlessness: check. The urge to eat sugar-anything, even spoonfuls of Hershey's syrup: hell, yes, check. Nausea, gas, and intestinal squirmies: check, check, check.

Last time I wrote an entry, I said (bitterly) that the worst thing about cancer is the uncertainty - and that the hardest part is counterbalancing that uncertainty with just the right amount of knowledge. After being diagnosed with shingles, I no longer have any certain idea who came along for this ride.

The name of this entry was going to be "10 Things I Hate About You," Right now there's just one thing I really, sincerely, loathe: the fact that I've got shingles.

For me, cancer is a life sentence that I have to shoulder and somehow work around for as long as I have to live. I've joined the ranks of 14.7 million Americans who are living with cancer, in some form, at any given moment. We are living with it.

I've had another request from a reader to say more about neuropathy. That topic segues into today's front-line report about chemo quite nicely, in fact, so I will expound.

Something tonight - something in the specific shifting of my bones, muscles, and ligaments on these stairs - took me right back to a different moment, long past and dimly stored, but somehow just the same.

Yesterday, Day 2, is a blur. Today, Day 3, is just plain missing. I thought I wouldn't sleep at all last night. Instead, I didn't wake up properly till about 3:30 P.M.