Waiting It Out

Treatment Progress Check: As I write this I’m on Day 2 of a 21-day cycle. Currently I have completed 1 out of 5 cycles. Friday’s IV treatment landed on me a little harder, and I felt a little weaker and more sensitive to cold & things. At least I know it gets easier from here.

Housekeeping

• The photos in today’s post were hand-selected by my daughter.

This Past Week

This was a week of mostly no pills and relative normalcy. In fact, in quieter moments it becomes easy to wonder if this cancer thing was all real and still happening. I’ll count that as a blessing.

Thursday I did a routine blood test and checkups with the nurse & doctor, who seemed to think things looked good for continuing the Xelox treatment. And so, on Friday, we did. Another two hours of IV chemo. This time I mostly watched the movie Tremors (1990) and had a nice bite of lunch midway through. Lori kept me company again, though she had to leave for a little while to be home for Cassidy at lunchtime.

For reasons, the site around the IV spot in my arm becomes extremely tender and sensitive near the end of the treatment and for a couple of days afterward. This meant that the tape they used hurt a lot to peel off, and I’m uncomfortable even putting my arm through the sleeve of a sweater at first. It’s Sunday as I write this and I’m still aware of the spot, though less so by degrees. I know from the first round that things will slowly get better and hopefully loop back around to where I was in my first paragraph — “is this even real?”

In an earlier post I mentioned the hiccups. On days two and three I take a pill called Dexamethasone to prevent nausea, which also appears to be the source of the hiccupping. I’ve been keeping count, and yesterday I had the hiccups 9 times. Today I’m at 8 but the day’s not over. I’d brought it up with my care team on Thursday and we discussed options; apparently there are more serious cases that last over nights and well into the rest of the week, and while backing off on the anti-nausea medication is an option, I then get to choose which side-effect I’d rather deal with.

I chose hiccups over nausea. The hope is that, like last time, once I’m out of Dexamethasone they’ll go away.

The thing about me and hiccups is: all my life I’ve hated them, to an irrational degree. When I was little, my brothers would do everything in their power to make me laugh so that I’d hiccup and interrupt myself, which made them laugh even harder. That I didn’t hate so much, but for some reason, as an adult, I came to strongly resent the interruption and loss of control, I think. I don’t like my body doing an annoying thing that I have no control over, and I had almost no patience to wait them out. I’d furiously guzzle water and hold my breath until they were gone, or get angrier by failing. I get how petty that sounds compared to other, more serious conditions. But it was me for a long time.

In the first cycle and in this one, I’ve actually come to surprise myself at how patient I’ve learned to be. They were very frustrating at first but I also quickly realized that my usual remedies had no effect. Nor did some of the other, slightly quackier ones suggested by one of Lori’s Google searches (sit with your knees close to your chest? okay sure???) . There really seems to be nothing for it but to wait them out. But I recognize that, in terms of what I can tolerate, they’re better than the alternative (feeling sick) and I do believe they’ll go away as soon as tomorrow.

And I think: I can do that! I can make it through a couple of days. Now, if I’m wrong and they persist, we’ll have a real problem and explore alternatives. But I’m learning that I have more a capacity to wait them out than I would’ve ever guessed beforehand.

Looking Ahead

Pills, pills & more pills. I have to remind myself not to look at the whole pack at once. Just take the ones in front of me. And like I said, hopefully I feel better by degrees each day. Sprinkle in some followup appointments with various doctors as we go.