Hello, from Chemotherapy

I know, I haven’t posted in ages and ages and ages.

The main reason I don’t post is that I’m back at work, so I feel like I communicate with a lot of people about how I’m doing. Plus when I get home, I’m pretty tired, and don’t want to look at my laptop. (Of course, playing stupid video games on my phone is totally fine.)

But I keep promising to post, so I’m posting. I’m actually sitting in the chemo clinic right now, getting my pre-medicines. Two anti-nausea drugs and the dreaded steroids. Then I wait for them to take effect, then I have the actual chemo. It’s a long, boring day at the clinic.

This is my very last one of these particular treatments. I’m pretty excited to move on to something else. I may later wish I was still on these, if the side effects of the next drug are worse – but at least it will be new. At this point, I dread my treatment days because I know I’m going to go from feeling good to feeling lousy, and the anticipation is extremely anxiety-provoking.

But I had a nice Christmas holiday with the kids, even if New Years was a snooze because I’d just had a treatment. I’m saving the champagne for when this is over.

As I’m typing this, I can feel the steroids kicking in. My attention span is drifting away… there goes the ability to focus… This is why I can’t really work on chemo day. I also don’t drive myself home, I’d probably forget where I was going.

In a few weeks I’ll see the radiation oncologist again, and we’ll make that plan. I’m hoping to qualify for a protocol that allows me to do radiation for 20 days instead of 33 days (it’s a daily treatment, M-F) but it will depend on some things that are outside of my control. More tests are likely in my future.

In other news, World Cancer Day is February 4th. Nike does a variation of this, which we call Meet Cancer Day – this is slated for February 5th. I was struggling to remember what happened on the campus where I work last year, and had to look into the archives to be reminded that last year the event was rescheduled and slimmed down due to snow. The Portland area does not do snow.

Anyway, with the help of some colleagues, we’ll be doing some awareness activities at the office to dovetail with the official event, which is mostly on main campus. For the non-Nike readers, Nike has a big, beautiful campus that looks like a college campus. It has amazing landscaping, goose dogs to manage the geese, and the new buildings are amazing and inspiring. I don’t work there. I work in a very generic office complex that’s technically in the next town over.

Well, the steroids have kicked in good, and I’m getting my actual chemotherapy now. Since I’m getting all kinds of twitchy now, I’ll sign off. I’ll try and do better about writing more frequently!

As always, I appreciate everyone’s good wishes and support. Unicorn magic!