My anal cancer treatments passed the half mark this weekend. All cancers are difference and so are treatment effects. Here are mine during the first three weeks.
Week 1. The first week's main event saw few unpleasant side effects other than The Bag (see link to the $48,000 chair).
Week 2. During the second week the chemo effects washed up like detritus from an oil spill and provided continuous indignity and weirdness. Some examples:
- I was a bit random with my anti-nausea meds the first week, and on the way to Albany for my daily radiation -- a speedy 45 minutes up the highway with few exits -- I realized I was about to vomit with a great degree of violence. Making not the wisest choice, I opened the window and let loose without considering the physics of speed and wind direction. Back it came inside, stopping first at my face. Lesson learned: take the meds regularly and keep a plastic bag in the car.
- Our car suffered a flat so we borrowed a friend's truck for one day's ride to Albany. Our friend is obsessively neat about his things, and Michael hates borrowing stuff from him out of anxiety that something bad will happen to it. Although the drive itself was uneventful, about half way up my hair took the opportunity to fall out, first onto me, then onto our friend's lovely leather seat. Desperate, I pulled hunks out and clutched them like an Adam's Family bouquet until we got off the Thruway and could stop. This time I was able to open the window and hurl my bodily traces out without a comeback.
- Food tastes like ethnic meals in a country you never want to visit again. Something happens to your taste buds so that anything you eat is transformed into peculiar unfamiliar chemicals with a mothball undertone and repellent mushy textures. I can't figure out if I'm actually tasting what food is really like, if the chemo is mixing it all up, or "It's People!" Here's what I can stand eating: Greek yogurt, cooked fruit, and hot dogs. In that order. The second week saw an explosion in mouth sores. They did not enhance the taste of the food. I have not lost one pound.
- I will not bother to describe the other intestinal indignities, which would only amuse small children.
Week 3. On the third week, the chemo effects settled down, and the radiation effect – The Hard Man -- hasn't kicked in much yet, except for a couple of ulcerated areas that apparently have healed up. Naps are lovely. I collapse around two or three and sleep like a baby. At night I wake up around four, but. then, even without cancer I always wake about around four. Same-o Same-o.
Summary
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect to the whole process so far is the metamorphosis of Self into some unfamiliar, unpleasant animal. Ones impulse is to hide in a cave and let those lovely naps take over. Aside from death fear, I think a lot of the depression comes from this perception. So, during my early AM wake-up, I get up and meditate, letting all the strange body sensations and the churlish thoughts drift off until I'm back where I belong, the deep heart that came with me at birth and will be my companion to the end. It makes me happy.
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