The last of my weekly toxic bombs will be dropped onto my system this Friday. It's hard to believe, but this will be my 12th session. Which will also mark the half time of my chemical romance.
Ironically, I feel more nausea than ever. I felt it when I woke up this morning, and I am still feeling it now. It hasn't subsided. I have not really been able to eat much. And I am hardly moving or turning my head. I have the impression that any tiny, insignificant stimulus would make me vomit.
Some weeks ago, I started with symptoms of peripheral neuropathy... A tingling and slightly twitching sensation in my left hand. Peripheral neuropathy, which results when chemotherapy kills off the ends of your nerves in hands and feet, is one of the most common and expected side effects of Taxol, the poison I am on. I am happy to report that mine has not developed any further--it is still only tingling and twitching in my left hand. Lucky me!
What follows is three months with chemo sessions every 21 days. In this round, each drip will be two times more poison than up to now. But the substance will no longer be Taxol, but A/C. Again, my hair will come off, but now completely. And my white cells will drop much more.
As much as I am excited to be finishing the first half of this whole toxic tale, and the weekly hospital stays, I am nervous about the symptoms, side effects and new dynamics of the second round. The doctors and nurses and everyone in my support group say that the feeling of being sick will be more intense, and that I will be miserable during the first ten days after the poisoning. The bright side is that I should be feeling almost normal during the second set of ten days.
Whatever. Nevermind. No need to be anxious or nervous. I will find out sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, this is the last week of my weekly chemo sessions. And it feels like a huge landmark.
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