What Have I Done??

Once home from my first treatment, I felt surprisingly well. Still dizzy and weak, but otherwise well enough to eat, walk at the park, and laugh. I can do this, I thought. Little did I know, an avalanche of symptoms was waiting for me around the corner of day 3.

I won’t bore you with the specifics of the barrage of drugs and supplements I was prescribed around the chemo treatments. But on day 3, I was instructed to begin self-injections of a drug that stimulates my bone marrow to make more white blood cells—to fight infection. This biological encouragement takes place inside my bones, which causes quite a bit of pain. Oh, but don’t worry—they told me that the pain to my bones and joints means its working. Such comfort there.  

The onset of the white blood cell producing stimulation drug on the evening of day 3 mixed with the expected wearing-off of the steroids from treatment day, made for a hellish storm inside my body. Now I’m not one to complain or to solicit sympathy from others, but damn—this was the worst I had ever felt. For me, it was what I imagine it’s like to be a 75-year-old boxer who hadn’t the sense to retire, coming off a foggy heroin trip, who had just been struck by a New York City cab while suffering from the flu. Yeah, that’s about it.  Complete misery.

The worst of it was the continuous fear that I had made a huge mistake. What if I don’t recover from this? What if I’m never myself again? What the fuck have I done? I know others have done this but they aren’t me. I already long to be me again and I’ve just started. I have always been active and on the go. What if this changes me and I never regain my spunk? For all those who want to wash away my doubt with “You can do it!” encouragement, please just allow me to share the reality of my trepidation. In the midst of my 75-year-old-boxer- flu-sufferer hours, all I wanted was to stop it. Never mind. I changed my mind; I’ll deal with the cancer another way. Certainly the cancer won’t be worse than this. But alas, I must move forward. By day 4 my symptoms had died down to a level of cab-struck-boxer but without the heroin fog or flu symptoms. Still not the active, laughing, cleaning, go-get-‘em me, but far more manageable.

Okay, so maybe I can do this. And maintain some normalcy as a wife, friend, dog-guardian, cat-servant, employee, and good standing human? I’ll give it my all.