Almost normal...

That is how I have been feeling. And I can hardly believe it!

The downward adjustment of the AC dose has been a bliss! No nausea, no vomits, no pain in the eyes or the joints... I have been low on energy, but not depleted. I have gotten out of bed every morning, and moved onto the couch in my office, working a good half day. I am eating reasonably well, have no fever, no strange and unusual bleedings... Nothing!

I think that the fact that I am not on steroids and antihistamines every week is making a huge difference. My restless leg syndrome has vanished almost completely, and I am sleeping as usual, without having to take pills. That, in turn, makes me less dizzy and disoriented, and allows me to wake up at a decent hour, not noon.

Memory plays games with our minds. Two weeks ago, I felt so weak and exhausted of the constant pain, illness, and never-ending waves of nausea that I was ceasing to believe that this would be over some day. During the last days, I have found it impossible to relate to those distant (yet so very recent) feelings of powerlessness, despair and utter absence of hope.

We are resilient fighters.

Today I came to realize that sooner rather than later, this chapter will be over. And I will be strong enough to enjoy the little and the big things of life.

I will come back to my spiritual homeland, and sit on the bench in the garden overseeing Clifton, below Lion's Head, enjoying the company of our dear friends. I will walk the Louvre and the ille de St Louise. I will have a picnic in Central Park. I will play with the doggies in the sun, and teach my left arm to swim again. I will wear dresses and be my sexy self. And I will spend time laughing and enjoying the possibility of seeing all of you again.

It will happen. In less than a handful of months, this will be over.

Friday night at the hospital...

This photo is actually not from today, but from the first AC session. I still have hair, compared to where I stand now.

Gabo went to sleep at home, and I am in bed, hearing the constant churning of the IV drop bomb. The doctor adjusted the toxicity of the AC, and he hopes that I will not feel as bad as last time, this time around.

I have my fingers and my toes crossed, hoping for the best but (still kind of) expecting the worst.

We shall see...

I feel good!!!

The weekend was fantastic! We had fun, we went for lunch, we actually did mre than just wait for the day to be over. It was nice. Very nice.

It is still cold in Mexico city, which does not really inspire me to go outside that much, but I am feeling almost normal.

My second AC session was postponed til next Friday. That means that I have to enjoy the days left until then.

I am working, to catch up on three weeks of complete oblivion. But I am also doing other stuff. Today I went to see mama Myriam in the evening. As when I was 15, we spent a couple of hours laying on her bed, gossiping and chatting. Wonderful!

Tomorrow we will go to the movies, and maybe out for lunch.

This thing of making the most out of each day is how all of us should live every single day. I am convinced. Of course, it gets harder to live up to that standard when you are feeling like shit. In a certain way, it is on the bad days that this ideal should be even more important... How can I muster the energy and spirit to uphold it, even when my mind and body seem fragile and breaking?

That's the riddle that I should try to answer. But, then again, I don't really want to spend the good days thinking of it, instead of enjoying every single moment. Quoting Bogart in Casablanca: "not today, not tomorrow, but soon..."

Is this really happening?

Today I felt better. No fever. No bone pain. No headache. No nausea. Almost no snotty nose. No cough.

Gabriel took my hand and we went for a walk to the center of Coyoacan. It is only three blocks. But I hadn't been for a stroll in weeks. Even the sun was shining.

It's possible that the ray of light came from yet another round of antibiotics. Manu took me to the hospital yesterday, to see an infectologist. His diagnosis was that the Neulasta shot gave me all my symptoms, and that now I was feeling sick and exhausted because my immune system is in overdrive. If I had less than a quarter of the minimum white blood cell count before Neulasta, I have ten times the top of the normal range now. Obviously, my poor little body is going insane.

Oh, and then, I was so weak and dizzy yesterday that I tripped upon nothing right in front of the hospital. I am not allowed to carry anything with my left hand, because when you have lymph nodes removed, your arm can no longer drain liquids, proteins and other substances as easily. Consequently, I was carrying my bag and my coat with the right hand. And I crashed into the concrete floor, using my left hand as a buffer. I rubbed off a chunk of skin, which actually seems to be more painful than a deep wound. Even worse, such a stupid injury ranks highest on the list of causes to develop lymphedema.

But today, I tried to ignore that. I do not want to think about yet another possibility of pain and discomfort. I will not get lymphedema.

And tomorrow will also be a good day. My chemo has been postponed until friday next week. AND, tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. Six years... If I feel like today, we might be able to go out for lunch. I am so looking forward to it.

DREADFUL!

I have felt OK only one day since the AC chemo started.
I am so sick of this.
I want it to stop. I want my life back.

The cold and gray is drowning me.

The myth of exceptionalism...

Every time I approach the voluptuous pleasure of submitting myself to yet another tortuous treatment, I think "I will be an exception, it will not be that bad". Well, if life and work had developed my overconfidence in my own exceptionalism, cancer has debunked it.

I have made my way through all possible side effects. A sobering activity for someone who, instead of traveling the world, has been grounded during the last six months.

Neulasta has been the latest addition to my nightmares. Besides costing almost as much as my body, it has been as brutal as the poisoning itself. It gave me--and the majority of people who get the experience--acute bone pain. Obviously that means, in my case, having that distinctive shooting pain in my spine back.

What are my Fridays out of the hospital good for, if they are overpowered by Neulasta?

WTF!!!

It has been 13 days since I got the first round of the new chemo scheme, and I am not feeling great. According to the doctor, I was supposed to feel like crap the first ten days after the chemo, and then slide into the paradise of an almost normal existence. Well, it has not been like that...

I do feel better than the first week, when I could not even get myself out of bed. But I still feel like crap. The reason, I now have learned, is that my white blood cells have dropped to less than a third of the acceptable minimum level. The doctor confirmed that, after looking at my blood tests.

And, with the stroke of a pen, he turned me into a luxury item, by giving me a shot to stimulate my bone marrow at the cost of almost 3K.

WTF!!!!

I will probably need one of these "cheap gigs" before every chemo session that is left on the calendar!

Warren says that I am pushing the concept of high maintenance to a whole new level...