How I’m doing 4/23/2020
No chemo tomorrow! I’m fine, healthy enough to get it. Physically.
Mentally, I am about to lose it. I just want to be done. Sixteen is just so freaking many chemos. I know I need this drug so I know not to quit, but I was getting very tempted. All I can think about is getting surgery scheduled and whether or not they will be able to do all of my breast removal and reconstruction at once. If they open up “elective” surgeries again, will people start going out and will there be a second spike of Covid before I can get my surgery? The protests and the political comments are terrifying.
I called oncology like a stalker for a week. I told them I am struggling. They listened to me and my oncologist offered to switch my last couple taxols to dose dense.
TWO instead of FIVE!?! Offer accepted.
So instead of five more sessions of one treatment each, I will go twice. At each session I will receive three doses. Physically it will wreck me for a few days but I don’t even care any more. The idea of going twice more instead of FIVE is the mental break I need right now.
Physically I have tolerated cancer treatment pretty well. I was very sick after my third and fourth AC, I lost a lot of weight. But after a few weeks of letting my body heal - if it even can heal while being blasted with more chemo - I was able to do yoga and run again.
I have been running my business all this time. Spending all day every Friday at chemo was killing me. I was calling people on Saturdays and working every weekend. Our kids are home, we have a baby, and there are no breaks anymore. Work, chemo, kids, cooking, cleaning, trying to get some exercise so my body stays healthy, I am on the edge of collapsing.
My folks take the baby three - four days a week so we can focus on work and trying to do this online school thing. I am barely worrying about the school work at this point. They can read. It’s just not a priority right now. I feel like I’m treading water with both hands tied behind my back. There are no more nights out or babysitters. The only naps I get are at chemo.
I walk by a mirror in my house and I do not recognize the person I see. My hair is gross. My skin is pale. My eyelashes have mostly fallen out and they have left bright white empty skin where they once were. I have tattoos where my eyebrows used to be. I have under-eye circles for the first time in my life.
The physical pain that I have endured is nothing compared to the pain in my mind. But I’ll be done with chemotherapy (hopefully forever) on May 15.
