Chemo Whores of the world unite!

The image above, entitled "Chemotherapy", really struck a nerve with me. The first night I had chemo, I sat with the pill in my hand, my big glass of water at the ready, feeling as though I was holding a loaded gun to my head. It took a lot to force myself to put the pill in my mouth and swallow it.

What didn't help were the warnings that accompanied the medication; "TEMODAR Capsules should not be opened or chewed. If capsules are accidentally opened or damaged, rigorous precautions should be taken with the capsule contents to avoid inhalation or contact with the skin or mucous membranes." I wondered what the Hell was in them to carry such a warning and I was about to put this substance inside my BODY??

Research (or an hour or so on Google) taught me that Temodar metabolises to a completely different substance inside the body. Yet another instance for me where knowledge gave me comfort, which happens more often than not.

So I took the chemo, after dutifully taking my Zofran an hour before and went to bed. I woke up in the morning and lay very still, as if moving would bring on dreadful side effects. After a while I realised that I was fine.

So much for that drama.



As I wrote in my first post, I was ill though, after the first chemo. I don't want to harp on about the negative, but I don't want to make it seem easier than it was. A lot of my illness was tumor-related, which went away after a while as the spleen nodule started responding to the drug. I was also getting severe bruising at that time, which also eased after about the second cycle of Temodar.

I've just finished my fourth and last cycle of Temodar, because it isn't working for me, although it HAS kept me somewhat stable. This time the worst side effect for me was burning, itchy feet and let's not forget the delights of chemo-induced constipation. Can you say concrete guts? It takes nothing short of a stick of dynamite shoved up your jacksy to move that baby.



Something funny about chemo though (yes, it is possible to find humor in even that), is the brain fog. It robs you of your ability to think, to make decisions, to remember what you were saying mid-conversation, to think of a word you want to use... worse of all, it robs you - temporarily - of your personality. Seriously, they might as well have sat me in the corner and left me to drool - they may have even done it and I just don't remember. That was a joke. Sort of.

Still... it was a good excuse for the occasional brain fart... I have no idea what my excuse is going to be now that I've finished chemo...

Reminds me of a T-shirt I once saw (can't remember where - OBviously); "I'm on chemo, what's YOUR excuse?"