4th week - AC Treatment

 On Day 10 of my 2nd chemo cycle, Brad and I were watching TV in the evening and all of a sudden I realized that I was sitting forward looking around that room wondering what I should work on. I looked at Brad and said, “The chemo wore off.” I don’t know if that's exactly true, but that's how I can best explain it. My energy was back, and my brain was fully functioning. I refer to it as a switch being flipped or a curtain being raised. A more accurate description is probably like early morning fog that slowly lifts. Sometimes it just keeps holding on, or patches of it stick around, and then all of a sudden it’s gone. So I spent my next days cleaning inside and outside, taking advantage of the nice weather. I walked on the treadmill and did some yoga and box fit with the Xbox. 

I also worked on getting rid of the hair on my head. Yes, that’s correct, I wanted it gone. I was taking my pillow into the bathroom and shaking the loose hair off into the bathtub in the morning after I’d wake up. Then I’d be itchy all day around my collar because some of those short hairs would fall out and get caught. I was soooooo over it. My uncle was in the Navy in the late 70s and early 80s, and he talked about how the guys would play “Odd or even” on the subs by yanking each other's hair out in various places. Well, this is what it looked like if you pinched hair from the top of my head. Imagine counting that.

So you just imagine what I was dealing with. When I washed my head, I just took my wet hand over my wet hair and this started happening. 

It took a while, but I came out looking kinda bald. I probably lost about 80-90% of my hair. Honestly I like it a lot better now. Except that the next morning I got up and put a robe on, and decided I needed to get on Amazon and buy a hooded robe. A bare head gets pretty cold. I’m not sure how some men do it. The robes weren’t too badly priced, and I found one with decent, reliable reviews. I see myself using it a lot this winter. 

Then I spent part of a day trying to figure out medical bills. Knowing what my deductible and max out-of-pocket is, and then looking at the notices and bills that were coming in, and was confused. So I called my insurance which was not helpful. Then I called Parkview which was somewhat helpful then called insurance back, which was very helpful. That’s also when I decided I was done playing phone tag and trying to figure out what was what and who was doing what. They could talk to each other about it. 

I won’t lie, I feel a mental game coming on with the chemo. Whenever I thought about going in for my chemo session, I would feel a little nauseous. As soon as I focused on something else, it went away. I tried to keep pushing this out of my mind. For the life of me, I don’t know why that was happening. The side effects from the chemo have been so manageable, that I’m seriously happy about it. Other than mental fog and just being tired, everything has been great. No mouth sores, no nausea (other than a brief mild spell on the first day of treatment), no vomiting, no bone pain. Sleep has been much better, and I have my normal days which are great. 

On treatment day, my 3rd cycle of AC, my blood work came back great. WBC were just slightly lower than normal, but that’s not surprising. I went down for my chemo and ordered breakfast rather than lunch. I ate my sandwich and decided to save the orange and muffin for later. I was expecting the chemo feeling to kick in part way through the red devil, like it had last time. This time it kicked in during premeds. I thought that was odd. I should have known something was up because the nurse asked me several times throughout the process if I was doing alright. I think she could tell. For the most part I thought I was okay. By the time all the chemo and everything was done, I was already starting with some mild nausea. I let the nurse now, and she asked if I had brought anything meds with me. The only meds I have for this are the ones they just gave me in the IV before this started, so I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be helpful. She wanted to know whether I wanted a medicine called into the pharmacy or if I wanted before I left. Considering the 45 minute car ride home, I requested it before I left. They gave me an anti-anxiety med that works for nausea, but it would make me tired. I figured that would be perfect. By the time we got home, I was starting to fall asleep in the car. I laid down when I got inside and slept from about 2pm-7pm, ate just a little bit, and then went back to sleep from 9pm-9am the next morning. In other words, I slept through most of my treatment day. I’m not complaining, either, treatment days are the hardest.