this is day four of chemotherapy. last night was kind of my first bad night.
they say that the three days after the chemo stops are the "down days". I've enjoyed being in complete denial about what that would feel like, since I assume I can have no idea.
they said I would sleep a lot. if they can make that happen, can't be all bad.
but if last night gives any indication (and we don't know whether or not it does), it's going to be a movie I'd rather leave in the Netflix queue.
it's a new kind of nausea to me...a level of a sane body trying to tell me, what the hell you doin' to me anyway?
I'm getting nausea medications...including a steroid. (anything I write here during these days has to be evaluated with an asterisk*) then there is a first level pill to take for nausea, and a second level one to fall back on.
it's important to them that I don't have that experience. kinda works for me, too. so I used the first line pill this morning, which seemed to help immediately.
four days on...tuesday through friday this week...then three down days (after which I'll be forced to punt, I suppose)...then two weeks of feeling better and better.
three week cycles, to start again the week after Thanksgiving.
after the second cycle...just before Christmas...they will do a scan, to see if the tumors are "responsive". they should be. I certainly am. I'm having all sorts of responses.
the thing I didn't really have a good model for is that, as opposed to most things in the world that you go through some procedure that gets them fixed, if the chemotherapy works...you keep doing it. if it doesn't work, you change the drugs you're using and try again.
but you never go through more than six (!) cycles, because after that the risk to the heart is too great. sometimes, if the white blood cell count isn't high enough, they'll wait another week before starting the next cycle.
after the six cycles...if the tumors shrink, or totally disappear... a much lower impact kind of drug treatment is prescribed. I don't know if at that point we cross our fingers or what.
as if we ever stop.
I need a miracle every day.
good thing you can't hardly go a day in my life so far without tripping over several.
most etymologists would ascribe a greek root word to chemotherapy. I have a different thought. I think the word has american indian origins.
I know I first heard it from Tonto.
I think it was in the serial, The Lone Ranger Goes to Canada, or, On to Toronto Pronto, Tonto.
"through the ground, I hear a dozen braves riding this way, Kemo Sabe. we need to leave."
Clayton Moore was told that the indian phrase meant, good friend.
Chemotherapy has been a miracle life saving friend to many many people.
but I always wondered how well Tonto took to being second banana to a white hat and a bandanna all those years. it wouldn't surprise me at all if Kemo really meant, you're just screwed, white man.
I have a "black box" knowledge of electronics. I can connect musical electronic pieces in ways that help them do what they are supposed to. Open one up, and I'm pretty much lost.
bodies are kind of the same way for me. I kind of like my insides inside and the outside outside. I think most interactions I have with people work well on a "black box" level, without thinking of their capillary systems or skeletons.
and the holes I've had in my body have really always been more than adequate for any exchanges with the environment I've had in mind.
when they said they were going to put a port in my chest, that would be permanent, I kind of bolted.
for one thing, no more hot tub, ever.
but for another...I don't want to walk around with a telephone booth in my chest, for Neo to climb into and be instantly transported to The Matrix of my circulatory system. I want, at least sometimes, to be the United States of Me, borders intact.
then it turned out that, with my medication, there were counter indications to a port.
so I have a double pic line, a glorified IV in my arm, for the days I'm getting the therapy.
it comes out tomorrow, reinserted the next cycle.
and a couple of medicine pumps that I have needed to carry like a little shadow in a little black bag. also going away tomorrow.
kind of a boost, on a first down day.
at some point, it's time to talk about this as well:
I am hearing from an ever expanding circle of people from my life, with words of encouragement and empathy...even the occasional apology...and additions to prayer circles from Buddhists, Jews, all sects of Christianity, many New Age healing traditions, and the occasional backsliding atheist.
I decided those visualization warriors were my prayeramedics.
much like the wisest thing that can be said about my future, the wisest thing we can say about the aligning of other spirits with my cause is that we just don't know the extent of the good it can do.
except to my will, and my spirit. that contribution is real, and powerful. and I am very very grateful for it...at times absolutely living off of it.
I will not always be. but all of the beautiful, generous things people have done and are doing for me now can never be taken away, will always have happened. I can't express how much of my darkness and fear have been lifted by my prayeramedics.
how much, how much is that worth?
and how much more heavy lifting will come...
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