the silent stretches

i am reemerging from the chemo haze for what amounts to the 30th time, i think, since my road turned that way back in november 2006. the different concoctions of man-made wonder drugs and the side effects they command have made my body a war zone. i like to think that if you opened me up, you would find a perfectly preserved specimen of a young female, missing part of her lung but appearing otherwise completely healthy. i know that is not the case. the drugs and their byproducts have ravaged me in unseen ways, leaving dead tissue and detritus behind. the radiation has also played a role in this. on top of the drugs, there are also the comings and goings of a normal human body doing normal human things. all of this goes on, on, on. and every few weeks, i go through a silent stretch.

the thing about the chemo is that i labor to embrace it as part of my life now. i know it is doing what it is designed to do, and that is more or less to keep me free of any large outposts of cancer in my body. i willingly go to my doctor every three - or four, oh, how i love the four-week stretches - and ask for more. more of the drugs! more needles! more! those days are tuesdays. it is a tiring day. following the waiting, the stories, the catching ups and the goings on at the hospital, there is the drive home. we stop for lunch, usually, my treat, i hope. it is the least i can do for boring mom with this routine every three weeks. i know she comes because she would never let me do it alone; this gives me huge comfort and i know it is not because she loves seeing me stuck with needles - though, sometimes, i am sure an extra pinch is thrown in here or there with an iv or shot for retribution for some past childhood wrongdoing. we eat our lunches and i try to keep my eyes open. we're both looking forward to going home and taking a nap. if it is a good day we stop at the grocery store for supplies - chicken for dinner, maybe a treat of some sort, and anything that catches my eye for the coming days. more often than not, we go straight home, bypassing the store. i take a long nap. mom takes a shorter one and heads to the grocery. i would like to think i could do this alone. but i wouldn't be fooling anyone.

wednesday is a day that encompasses all ranges of movement and feeling. morning is the best time and i mange to wake up with the energy i normally would. i eat my usual breakfast and head to work, with the sole thing on the "to do" list being everything i can get done before i get tired. because on wednesday after chemo, tired isn't just that late-afternoon slow down. it means i am heading down for the count. sometimes i make it through lunch. a headache comes on, just low-grade, a persistent but manageable thrumming behind my eyes. it is time to get in the car before i can no longer concentrate on the driving. i get home, drink some water, and head to sleep. dinner is light, sometimes just to myself, and it really only serves as a means from getting through the time between the nap and bedtime. during the summer, the last licks of lights are still painting the horizon as i pull the covers up. i am 29 years old. going to bed when it is still light out. i have been poisoned.

it is not uncommon for me to wake up on thursday mornings following 12 or 13 hours of sleep interrupted only by my hyperactive bathroom breaks. in an attempt to flush the toxins out of my body i try to drink as much fluid as i can. this keeps me moving in a predictable fashion most of the night. if i wake up on thursday with a headache, i know i have fallen short in my attempts at hydration. amazingly, the idea of drinking water actually grosses me out by this point in the week. i want anything but water. anything. when you're trying to down three or four liters a day it gets really old really quickly, especially when you're not doing anything active to warrant it. just keeping the kidneys cleaned out. thursday is basically a test in napping capabilities, moving silently from room to room, blanket to blanket. when the days are sunny i go outside and sit. when they are rainy i move even slower, somehow taking on the mood of the day as my own. i often try to go get my haircut on thursdays, whenever my energy is at the highest. somehow, doing something nice for myself gets me through it. i could go without eating, but in reality, i am starving. hungry for what, who knows. this week it was pizza. two times ago it was cheerios. thursday somehow becomes friday morning.

and friday. the chemo, by now, feels as though it has loosened its grip upon me, but in turn has begun oozing out my pores. i know this isn't really happening, but beacuse of the overall grossness of the chemicals, i always look forward to a nice, hot shower in the morning. my clothes, clean as can be because i haven't done anything all week, get thrown in the laundry regardless, because to me, they retain a chemo smell that i just cannot face otherwise. again, no need to actually be disgusted, because i don't actually smell like chemo. it is just in my head and i cannot get it out. friday is also the day when my alimta rash appears. sometimes it is worse than others, but usually it begins with a couple of bumps across my eyebrows and through the day spreads across my forehead, onto my scalp, and down along my shoulders. we've tried some different creams, using lotion, not using lotion, going longer with steroids, and none of it really seems to do the trick. something about the alimta causes this rash, and it drives me nuts. aside from the poison, it is the one real thing that makes me want to crawl right out of my skin. it doesn't itch like crazy, but it hurts. it makes me resemble an adolescent after a night of gorging on candy. it is awful. so, as long as the day goes on, i take it, and as soon as i can get in another hot shower, i do. like maybe, somehow, the rash will melt with the heat from the water.

this friday night, i am feeling optimistic for the weekend. i am doing much better than i was this time last chemo round. i sat at the table for dinner and even considered going out, before my tiredness got the best of me. something about chemo brain doesn't make me want to drive my car in the dark. there's a bit of a breeze coming through the window, rustling the leaves on my plants. things smell sweet outside. i don't say much during these days because i don't want to sound like i am complaining. it is just very easy to be quiet and try to get through the days. easy is on a different scale, really.