A Little Zest for Life

It's around 6:30 a.m. and I just got the best night's sleep I've had in many days. Several hours of continuous sleep with none of the nightmares and headaches of the previous two nights. Yay! I feel I'm gradually rejoining the world of the living. In this moment I'm good!

This past week was particularly rough. I'd been fiercely holding onto my denial about how long I'd be knocked down by the chemo. After all, I'd taken almost an entire week off, that should be enough I told myself. But yesterday was very hard. I had only 3 clients scheduled throughout the day and that was plenty. My nausea was so persisitent that I came home after each client, took off my wig and work clothes, got back into my pajamas and into bed to rest and stave off the nausea for a while until it was time to put the wig and work clothes back on and drive back to the office. Very unpleasant.

During the last few days I felt so bad I couldn't do much blogging. I just wanted to be alone and get past this. (Because really, what can anyone do? We're all helpless in this.) As much as I feel better now, I still have a desire to record and document the difficult times. Whether it's for myself or others, I don't always know. Probably both. At times like yesterday, I felt scared - when in the midst of the nausea and headaches I don't know when it will end. During those times a part of me is thinking, frantically, "I don't know how much more of this I can take!" I know why people in intolerable situations want to and do dissociate. It's too much. And I know why people who have survived cancer "forget" aspects of the experience. The impulse to get away from it, far, far away -- by dissociation or forgetting -- is powerful and feels like the only sane thing to do.

Yesterday all I could eat was yogurt and small portions of chicken fried rice. Everything else was completely repulsive. Sweets and sugary foods are of the devil! LP, the nurse practitioner said only the first 3 days of nausea are due to the chemo; after that it's "heartburn." She said the chemo wreaks havoc with my entire digestive system. Apparently, as the chemo does its work, all fast-growing cells in my digestive tract (and elsewhere too) are killed. As these cells are sloughed off, acid forms. All I know is whether it's called "heartburn" or side effects of chemo, it FEELS like nausea and IS nausea. I did tell myself though, that eating would help, so I ate my portions of chicken fried rice, "willing myself" to neutralize the acid in my system. Today I believe I may be able to eat more normally.

I continue to feel uplifted by phone calls and emails from SWB, HB, BD, EAK, MI, TB, and others. Thank you! It makes a difference!

Today I'm really hoping Dan and I will get to Boggy Creek Farm to see the chickens and, if we're lucky, get some eggs! I love it there.