Birthdays are a pain in the ass – literally!

Well I’m older now, but not wiser that’s for sure. I started the first day of my 28th year with an enema in the morning and then iced that cake of an idea with a rectal exam in the afternoon. “happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…” Actually maybe that was smart; the year can only get better from here!

Chemotherapy is very hard on the digestive system which in turn messes with your bowels. I have read about (and experienced) a constant swing back and forth between constipation and diarrhea in patients getting treatment. It all becomes very hard on the backdoor and can lead to a whole mess of other problems like fissures and hemorrhoids. I honestly spend more time dealing with this shit (pun intended!) than the actual cancer; thus the ass exam.

Oh well, putting that “behind me” I have a fun filled week of other doctor appointments to address all of the other side effects that have occurred from the cancer or treatment. Next the eye doctor – I’m going blind and can’t do anything without what used to be my reading only glasses. This could either be nerve damage from the lymphoma or a temporary side effect of the chemo. (I’m also losing memory and going deaf but I’m confident these are temporary and take far too much joy in driving people nutz to address the issue right now.)

Then into see the cardiologist about my fluttery ticker. Again this could be from the chemo, but it’s more likely something to do with the mass that was/is in my chest pushing on my heart for so long. I hope it’s just that as the mass shrinks the pressure is receding causing irregular activity, but I’m worried that there’s a thin spot on the wall of my heart from where the mass was because I have read about it happening with other lymphoma patients; and all my symptoms sound the same. My hematologist just “loves it” when I Google.

But all this gets me thinking about how even when it’s over, it’s not really over. After chemo I may have radiation (or more chemo) and then endless check ups and scans. Overall I am confident that I will eventually be Hodgkin’s free. But what if I’m left with a heart problem, damaged eye sight, a broken ass! What if my eyebrows never grow back, I’m so fucking sick of painting my eyebrows on like a geisha girl everyday. What if the potential radiation to my chest area causes a breast cancer 10 years down the road, as we now know radiation can do? I don’t think I can do this again, and certainly not breast cancer. What if I have children by then, god what if I can’t have children because of this?

It’s not really going to be over. Life AC (after cancer) will be a life of some certain cancer problems and the uncertainty of potential cancer problems. No wonder I feel sick when people talk about this being over soon and getting back to my old life. I don’t know about you, but none of this was in my old life; certainly not the first 27 years.

I’m afraid for this to end. I have just two more scheduled treatments to do, and you would think it would make it easier to do knowing I’m so close to the end, but it's not. Everyone keeps talking about this ending and me going back to work and back into a normal life and it makes me feel worse - anxious. I've been sick for so long, and feel so run down now it's hard to imagine ever feeling good again. And then going back into my normal life, I don't even know what that is anymore! This whole thing has changed me, I can't quite pin point how but I know I am not myself; I’m going to feel like a stranger in my own day.

Treatments are getting harder physically now in that I feel very nauseous during and after treatment and my body is just not recovering the way it used to. These days I barely have anytime between treatments that I feel good and have a normal amount of energy, my WBC never recovers before the next round now. I’ve upped my Neupogen to 4 shots per cycle, but it’s not really helping and the pain of it is too much for me to do 5 shots. Id rather have low counts and be a slug.

Despite the nausea I have done a fabulous job of eating my way through this experience. I’ve pushed out of most of my jeans and had to buy bigger underwear! Horrifying, I’ve gained weight before but it never pushed me to the next ass size. I keep telling myself Ill deal with the weight after, be happy with the cookies now, but I’m a little afraid I wont have the energy to shape myself up after.

The weight is also tainting my excitement for our upcoming vacation. My family has planned Christmas on a beach to celebrate the end of my treatments and give us all a break from… why we’re going with each other I don’t know? But there is no way I’m getting in a bikini, not that I can get much sun so soon after chemo anyways. So I have this awful picture of myself fat, pale, baldish and in one of those old lady skirted swimsuits knitting in the shade. That’s right I knit!

Going Feral.

I haven’t got much of a reason to leave the house today, so I’ve been circling it like caged animal. My responsibilities and abilities are so minimal these days there’s not much to do; not much I want to do or much I can do. I thought about getting dressed and going out to the mall but it seems like a lot of effort for nothing, as I’m out of spending cash and what’s the point of painting on my eyebrows when I’m just going to wipe em off again.

This is perhaps how depression starts. Why get out of my pajamas when I’m just going to get back in them having done nothing in-between, might as well stay in them. It’s hard to keep track of day and night when you have no routine beyond the recognition that Oprah signifies that transfer between daytime and evening television at 4pm.

However it is amazing how fast time flies pissing it away, Tuesday was lucky number 13 (out of 16) rounds of chemo finished. I am the last patient booked each Tuesday, so the place is empty when we are done and the nurse ends her shift to go for dinner when I finish. Unfortunately for her I have an uncanny knack of waiting till the end of my rounds to be sick which makes the nurses stay late and Mum terrified that she'll have to drive home with me, head in a bag. Although she much cooler about it since we started driving my car to and from.

So it was a tough time when I got home and crackers for dinner. But it didn't last long; thankfully I got a new prescription to help me sleep... I think it must be anesthesia in pill form because I barely remember taking it and woke up quite refreshed the morning after - organs intact.