Day 12

It's been a long time since I've posted and I had forgotten how good it feels.  I will force myself to post daily or nearly-daily regardless of my energy.  (Besides, lots has happened, and now it's a lot to write!)

So it's been a week of rest.  Each day I've had to relearn my limits.  The energy that I have is extremely fleeting, but I've learned a few ways, through trial and error to try to manage it and avoid crashing, which, when it happens, is pretty bad.

It seems that there are two waves of effects from the chemotherapy, broadly speaking.  

The first kicks in by the forth day of actual infusions.  Liters and liters of fluid have been forced through your system (forced hydration is the most effective tool against nausea; that and fluid is the delivery mechanism for the actual medicine.)  The resulting feeling is reminiscent of a  long haul flights, in coach, where you unadvisedly never leave your seat to walk about or stretch.  And you're flying 10 hours a day for five days.

But that's it. No hours of the bathroom floor, vomiting uncontrollably, like you hear about.  I felt generally run down for the next few days, but each day felt a little better.  My appetite was fussy.  If I didn't eat immediately when I was hungry, the urge left and I didn't eat.  At the time, no one in the house was eating, because of the stomach bug, so I fit right in.

The second impact of treatment came on Wednesday, and is continuing, although mitigated.  Wednesday will have its own post, but this second impact is essentially a total lack of energy.  It's somehow different then being tired, because being tired implies some cycle of exertion and activity that, when complete, results in fatigue.  This effect instead existed as soon as I opened my eyes even after hours of sleep.  If fact it was often worse then, as I'll explain.

Since Wednesday I've figured out that these energy ebbs have a lot to do with my appetite, something I previously have payed little attention to.  For my entire life my appetite has never been a strong overriding stimulus for me to eat.  And since treatment my appetite is very fleeting.  It may say "hey, I'm a bit hungry, maybe" once, but if not appeased it doesn't utter another word.  Then just an hour later, I start to feel awful; the kind of awful where you just want to crawl into a hole and shut off your mind.  Eating becomes the last thing I want to do, but not doing to is a big mistake.

In that situation I've learned to just to force down food, and the endure the return of the back pain that I first experienced on the Wednesday (but still have no explanation for) and real queasiness.  But (as I tell myself as I force down food) it's the only way to feel better over the next four hours or so.  

And of course the better option is to avoid the situation above is to eat small and frequent meals, and eat immediately after I fell any urge whatsoever to eat.  This allows me to create sustained bouts of energy, although perhaps they only last three hours or so.  So if I basically closely manage my blood sugar, I avoid the crash.

So, I've learned a lot, and I can only hope these lessons will make the next three rounds easier.