I had my second chemo session last friday. Again, it took long long hours. Gabo was flying back from Europe, and Manu took me to the hospital. We arrived at 1.30 pm and got home at 10.30 pm. The whole process is kinda exhausting.
To those of you who haven't seen me, I have a port for chemotherapy. It was surgically placed under my skin and connected to a vein in my neck. Yes. It sounds like in the Matrix. (Manu says that I can dream of being Neo...)
When I arrive at the hospital, they clean the skin above the port and stick a considerably impressive needle into it. The next step is drawing blood out of there, then rinsing it, and then hooking me up to IV. And then begins the prelude to my chemical romance... I get steroids, so as to survive the atomic bomb about to be dropped; antihistaminics, to avoid violent allergic reactions; and antiemetics, to prevent uncontrolled vomiting. This takes about three hours. After that, I am ready for yet another three hours of Taxol, the substance that will kill any remaining cancer cells. (More about the niceties of Taxol next time).
The big surprise with session 2 was that I got insomnia, and couldn't sleep at all from Friday to Saturday. While I was lying in my bed, awake, I was imagining an army of chemotherapy raging through my body, wiping out good and bad. But I couldn't feel a thing. Saturday was strange, because of the lack of sleep. Sunday was a killer. I was completely wiped out, weak and exhausted. But Gabo was already here, making everything OK. He is like a wizard. The most loving wizard of all.
Let's find out what surprises follow...
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Your life is about to change forever...
This is how I felt when the doctor told me that I had cancer. Like Kermit the Frog, hearing that he is nothing but a puppet governed by someone else’s hand.
No control over my life.
The sensation of lack of control accentuates as you try to understand what is going on, what needs to happen, what are your options, how to choose… Every single step is a reaffirmation of your very own lack of control over what is happening to you.
Together with lack of control comes the endless feeling of profound disempowerment and uncertainty.
“Can I really do whatever I want? Or do I owe it to my beloved partner, my family, my dearest friends, all of those who believe that I am Wonder Woman and beyond, to put up a tough and protracted battle against this disease? Do I want to subject myself to being cut open, maimed, poisoned, and radiated with the hopeful perspective of being, ultimately, reassembled and reinserted into the beautiful life?”
The answer to these questions is yes.
And so as to make sense out of the answer, and the questions, and in order to gain myself back in the process, reach deeper into myself, and deeper into you, I am starting this blog. I am sorry to say that it will not always be fun—it might even come to be impossibly dark. But it will be my honest attempt to transmit to all of you, near and far, who love me and wonder how I am, what it is that I am going through.
These are the cancer diaries of Toxic HH, a.k.a. Flying Piglet, a.k.a. Cosmic Mouse.
No control over my life.
The sensation of lack of control accentuates as you try to understand what is going on, what needs to happen, what are your options, how to choose… Every single step is a reaffirmation of your very own lack of control over what is happening to you.
Together with lack of control comes the endless feeling of profound disempowerment and uncertainty.
“Can I really do whatever I want? Or do I owe it to my beloved partner, my family, my dearest friends, all of those who believe that I am Wonder Woman and beyond, to put up a tough and protracted battle against this disease? Do I want to subject myself to being cut open, maimed, poisoned, and radiated with the hopeful perspective of being, ultimately, reassembled and reinserted into the beautiful life?”
The answer to these questions is yes.
And so as to make sense out of the answer, and the questions, and in order to gain myself back in the process, reach deeper into myself, and deeper into you, I am starting this blog. I am sorry to say that it will not always be fun—it might even come to be impossibly dark. But it will be my honest attempt to transmit to all of you, near and far, who love me and wonder how I am, what it is that I am going through.
These are the cancer diaries of Toxic HH, a.k.a. Flying Piglet, a.k.a. Cosmic Mouse.
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