Turkey and the Dread Zone

     So yay, hooray! I ate a delicious Thanksgiving feast prepared by my husband and daughter, graced with a luscious dessert made by a Brazilian beauty and I did nothing but watch the flurry of activity all around me, slept, ate, slept, visited with dear friends, had lots of well wishes and long-distance love and hugs from family and friends, ate some more, felt guilty about doing nothing but doing that...but had a lovely time and felt truly thankful and loved and happy to be able to participate in the holiday that has much more concrete meaning to me this year than it has in many years past.
     I hope you all enjoyed your holiday as well--perhaps in a less sleepy way than me, unless you had post-turkey narcolepsy to blame.
     Did you finish the rest of that first round of chemo, you say?  Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did! It went much faster than day one (maybe 3 hours?)--I'm hopeful that we can manage it all in one day next time, but I do appreciate that I had sort of a Chemo Light day the first day and was able to get the lay of the land.  I feel like a little bit of a Chemo Newbie:  where is everything, which are the best chairs to sit in, do you stay closer to the bathroom where it's noisier or try to move farther away (pushing that pole back and forth can be a little tedious if you are up every 45 minutes--dude, it's a lot of liquid, I'm telling you).  
     John and I even joked that maybe there would be Chemo Hazing from the veterans, or it would sound like prison lockup:  Hey, what are YOU in for?  Uh...lymphoma.  LYMPHOMA!  That's such a wussy cancer it doesn't even say CANCER in the name!! Get outta here! Beat it! Cancer pansies!!
     But I digress.  

     This round of chemo included the introduction of, what I have learned is known in the vernacular of the initiated as, The Red Devil, or for you who are not on intimate terms with it:  Adriamycin/Doxorubicin.  It's called The Red Devil because it's, uh...red.  And I guess because it kicks your ass all over the place.  This is the one that will make my hair flee my head.  And I did not enjoy the irony of my red hair (however enhanced it may be) likely going down to a red drug.  Not fair.  This is also the one that has a lifetime maximum dosage because it can jack your heart permanently.  So you can only dance with this devil so long.  So let's hope it does its job, shall we?
     Then I got this cool patch that flashes a light for 27 hours and then injects some white blood cell building juju into you and you take it off.  Wanna see? 

Honey, does this patch make my arm look fat?

     The only thing I would say is that it takes some getting used to when you are in the dark and you have green light flashing somewhere behind  you...and okay, so I was tired...and maybe disoriented...so maybe thinking that seeing the flashing light bouncing off the bathroom walls in the dark meant that the police had pulled someone over in front of my house was...a perfectly reasonable assumption.  Anyway, it just sticks on, you can shower with it, it doesn't hurt.  It does this beeping leadup to pricking you with a needle and then inserting a tiny catheter in...but the beeping sounds loud and dramatic, and you get all worked up IS IT GOING TO HURT and then it's a total nothing.  Nuthin'.  Fuggeddaboudit.  No worries.
     Anywho, I was feeling good that we were done in the Drug Den for the day, and I was riding the euphoria wave of ONE DOWN, yeah baby, whoo hoo!  Which is all good.  And I was feeling a little protected by that anti-nausea cushion that was alluded to from the drip cocktail I got before the heavy hitters that day.  But toward early evening I was feeling a little bit hinky and almost instantly received the most perfectly timed phone call from a chemo veteran who told me, in so many words:  "Don't even THINK about counting on the cushion, get those anti-nausea meds in you NOW!"  That was some divine intervention right there, I'm telling you.  I think that was what allowed me to partake of the feast, actually. So, just passing that bit of wisdom along to others, in case you ever need to share with someone else.
     And after about 45 minutes the meds kicked in and I felt better, but then I started to feel this increasing sense of dread coming over me bit by bit:  Well, I feel better now...but for how long?  And how will it feel when I don't feel this good?  What will it be like?  Like a hangover?  Food poisoning?  When will it come?  How often?  Does everybody get sick?  Can I avoid it entirely?  Oh my gosh, when is the other shoe going to DROP?
     And then I received ANOTHER perfectly timed phone call from another cancer survivor, who gave me the best little talking to and set my mind right:  Can't get lost in the Dread Zone.  Or you are going to waste the moments when you feel well by ruining it with anticipation of NOT feeling well.  True words for real life, true words for cancer life.  
     I think for the next several days (days 4&5 are supposed to be doozies, and I'm just reporting what I've heard objectively, but not from behind enemy lines in the Dread Zone) I will be involved in sleeping, setting alarms for taking meds, and getting my mind around feeling just a little jittery and sluggish at the same time which is not my favorite combination of sensations.
     But I'll be back to let you know how it goes...maybe even a post that just says BLECH!  I'm hanging in with all your help and I do appreciate it!  xo

(Almost forgot the best chemo jams that day were:  Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger, Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother, and of course, my son's personal request for me to listen to during chemo, Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.  *smooches to him*)