And I'm Feelin' Good (cue Nina Simone)

     Do you remember how I said that the chemo bag the center gave me was not going to do for the long term?  I did substitute a bag that I already had...it not only holds more, but it doesn't have "Hi, I'm A Bag From the Cancer Center" emblazoned across it, which I prefer.  It is likely inappropriate.  But oh well.  Works for me.  It's pink, so I guess that's cancer-themed, right?  Look at what's on MY snazzy bag!



Uh, killing my cancer.  Why, what's on YOUR mind?

     Because nothing says sexy like being hooked up to an IV through a port, I'll tell you.  Kind of have to beat people back with a stick.  Shoot, all I have to do is add my nightly CPAP mask, lose my hair, and John better watch out--they will be circling like moths to a flame,  baby.  (Why did I all of a sudden have a vision of me as Bane from the Batman movie...or being strapped to the front of a Mad Max Mobile?  Yeek!)
    
     (With no transition whatsoever...)  A friend wrote me and asked if chemo was as bad as I had thought it was going to be.  And this was part of my response, which might give you a little more insight (and reaffirm the fact that Andrea uses naughty words):

"So really, I think chemo sucks ass in a big way, but in a much different way than I thought it would.  I was expecting it to be all flu-like, or hangover, or food-poisonish:  feverish, nauseated, and then you barf your guts out and you feel a sense of relief (and then you just do it over and over).  And then one day you just feel miraculously better, maybe a little weak, but you know the fever has broken and you are on the mend.

But it is so not like that.  Never having been a drug addict, I can only guess that it is something akin to going through withdrawal from a really shit-tastic drug.  The anti-nausea meds are stellar as long as you keep on it like you have OCD…set the alarm, take the med, don’t be late, no skipping.  So there is queasiness here and there, and smells start to smell disgusting, and your sense of taste goes out the window (tastes like nothing or tastes like metal—meh), and your mouth feels like it feels if you’ve burned your taste buds on something hot and you’ve got all the open sores.  And your bones ache and ache and ache!  Laying down hurts, but sitting up hurts but walking hurts.  And your hands are shaking and you feel like you are just a hair away from starting to twitch.  But everything else is all this internal SHIT!!!  Your brain is hijacked, so your body is hijacked, and you cannot get back to yourself no matter what you do.  Everything goes into a laser focus inside yourself, and the focus is WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME?!?!  You just aren’t there anymore.  And when you come back, it’s like a miracle—I just am so happy my brain remembered who I am!  That’s the only way I can describe it."

     But as long as I am feeling good, I am just going to enjoy it.  I feel like myself, just a more tired, "I need a nap", things-that-don't-actually-require-much-effort-end-up-tiring-me-out version of myself.  I've been able to visit with friends, get out to school events, and run some errands, which have all helped my mindset tremendously by making me feel like a regular person, not a sick person.  When you feel like an invalid you feel invalid--as in, not valid.  It's hard to keep a positive outlook when you feel that way. 
     Right now, even though I am feeling so much better than I was, my immune system is about at the lowest point that it's going to be, so I get to wear a mask out in public when I'm around the general population of winter cold and flu and RSV carriers, because I don't have any juice left to fight anything off.  As we get closer and closer to my next date in the Drug Den (12/17), my immune system will keep on improving and, if the blood work shows that it has repaired itself sufficiently, then I'll get the green light to commence Round 2 (where once again my immune system gets knocked down...but it gets up again...sing that Chumbawumba song...).