Update

The past few treatments have been rather difficult. The 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th were all very, very hard days for me. I had a lot of nausea and dry heaving. In fact, on the 8th before I even got into the hospital (just thinking about Chemo) made me gag into the grass but have nothing that came of it, except a more sick feeling and a feeling of wanting to turn around and walk back to the car.

But you can't do that with cancer. You can't hand it off to someone else until you get your strength up. You can't ask the chemo to stop pummeling you for one second while you live a normal day. There's no one to yell at, no one to blame, no proxy stand-in to tag team it with you. I am realizing it's one of the most absolute commitments that i'll make during this life (with no clause) until i'm in recovery. (note: I don't mean it to sound that my faith, or my wife are not absolute commitments in my life, it's just with cancer there is no letting up even for a minute. You are literally forced to keep going, there is only one morbid alternative. There isn't anything else that i have been able to think of that compares to that in life.)

I don't mean to be a downer. It's just when it comes to nausea I just want to curl into the fetal position and let it pass, quitting everything that i am doing. It's also to the point where i am jealous of healthy people. I know, it seems really silly! It's just getting harder to straight-cope with everything.

Luckily I have good Doctors that care about how i am feeling. I had an appointment yesterday with my Oncologists PA and she told me the Infusion Center told her all the days i was feeling nauseous. She begged me to call her when I get that way. There are still options we haven't explored. She prescribed me a patch that goes behind my ear for nausea, a pill for indigestion and another fail-safe for indigestion: Mylanta. Which by the way, tastes like one of my chemos, it's nooooott pleasant, but it works really well. I am hoping that these things will work, even though as I look inside myself to see how my body feels right now, I think by the 26th (the start of my last cycle) I don't think my gag reflex will be settled.

I can compare it to this: Have you ever overeaten to where you're physically uncomfortable? You just want to sit and rest and let it pass. After a couple hours the feeling of uncomfortably full passes. So you eat maybe... a banana -- immediately you're back where you started, at the threshold you were 2 long hours ago.

Only for me it has to do with feeling sick. I go through the chemo cycle and at the end I want to sit and let the feeling pass. After a week of feeling sick, it passes. Then a week later is when I "eat the banana" only at the beginning of my treatment I was digressing like honey coming out of the bottle on a cold day. Now it seems like a bullet train.

I mentioned before I don't want to be a downer. I really do have a silver lining to this post. I had talked to my wife for a couple of hours about my treatments and I told her about all these internal conflicts I was having about the treatments. After we finished our talk I felt so much more energized and happy.

I realized that these prescriptions and the doctors that I have are here to help me. They've helped people through this many, many times. Some times I am just too much of a trooper when it comes to medical care, because I am not used to being sick. Also I get the stubbornness (in a good way) from my Mom. It's hard for us to let other people take care of us, we'd rather save the world, while we're sick so the spotlight doesn't get shown on us too long.

There is something to be said for submission though. I believe it is in those times that we are able to grow the most because we know we aren't in control. That is what has driven me crazy about this whole process, I haven't been in control of anything! It's a hard pill to swallow, but i think we all have to give up the reigns to not stay on a narrow path. That's what i'm going to start doing -- I'm a late bloomer. heh

Wednesday or Thursday I am going to start wearing the patch to prepare for my bleo session on Friday. They also suggested I take a nausea pill on the ride there and on the ride home. That seems very reasonable and it also seems like it will help a lot. We'll see how it goes on friday. I'm also wondering if chemo on a half-full stomach would be my best bet too, or if i should eat several hours before my appointment. I can't imagine an empty stomach would be a good idea and i've already found what happens with a full one. So its going to be a little bit of trial and error this week.

I get better at keeping everyone updated. Once again, I don't mean to complain, but the down parts of the this past week were necessary to bring me to where i am at now.