11 days later, I’m still waiting.  Barring one bout of nausea, which passed in about 15 minutes, I have experienced none of the side-effects listed under the “Common” column.  Instead, I have experienced side-effects more common in pregnancy than in chemotherapy.  I have had incessant, eye-watering heartburn, constipation, hot flashes, an outbreak of acne on my face and chest, headaches, skin and muscle pain, food cravings and indescribable fatigue.

I was convinced that the three day drug regimen I was on would hold the nausea and vomiting at bay until the meds were finished, following which I would be making a close acquaintance with my toilet bowl.  Day four rolled around and still no sign of the dreaded Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  In fact, I’m still keeping a keen eye out for them, but they’ve obviously received reports of my Iron Constitution and are too chicken to do battle with it until it has been well and truly worn down by the chemo and rendered too weak to put up a fight.  At times, I would have been incredibly grateful for the diarrhoea part of it because the constipation I have suffered has been awful.

Waiting for the onset of the Big Three has been almost as trying as having them would have been.  Every morning I have woken up wondering whether that would be the day.  Every meal has left me feeling apprehensive about whether or not it will make me ill.  But, to no avail.  Barring one incident, my stomach has held firm.

It is not as though I have been sitting in a side-effect vacuum, however.  Chemo is far too toxic to let me get away with feeling good about the whole thing, despite the strength of my constitution and mind.

Heartburn has become my new friend - with me through thick and thin, day and night - sometimes, nothing more than a gentle burning in the back of my throat and sometimes, like a hot rod extending from my stomach to the inside of my brain.  I have sucked on so many mints that my tongue has developed a small blister and my sinuses are clearer than a brand new hosepipe.  I’ll probably need complete dental reconstruction when this is all over.

Just to give the heartburn a little extra bite, I have experienced hot flashes emanating from my solar plexus and radiating outwards through my entire body.  At times, I feel as though my chest area is being gnawed away by noxious chemicals from the inside.  The resultant effect of this is that rather than looking like your average white and pasty cancer patient, I have the ruddy complexion of a nomadic, desert-dweller.  My face and chest appear to be sunburned, which is not an entirely bad thing, given that I have had a total acne outbreak to rival even the most hormonally-challenged adolescent.  For those of you who quaver at the sight of a lone pimple hovering below the surface of the skin, step aside:  we are talking OUTBREAK here!  These babies are so nasty that I am expecting a visit from scientists in HazMat suits to pop over for a little testing and quarantining.  It’s a good thing one feels too revolting to be vain.

On the subject of vanity, I feel it is my duty to report that I will not be one of those chemo patients who becomes frail and thin and wispy.  Despite repeated warnings of loss of appetite, my body obviously never got that memo.  Rather than going off my food, I have become completely obsessed with it.  During my extended periods of fatigue and lethargy, I have watched hour upon hour of the Food Channel.  I have barely finished one meal and I am already thinking about the next one.  I have had different food cravings every day and eaten each meal as if it were made by the hands of the Food Gods.  Interestingly, the food cravings haven’t been particularly weird – just incessant.  I have craved mashed potato, chicken soup, pork sausages, cucumber with vinegar, spaghetti and meatballs and atchar.  Once consumed, I am happy and content, until the next craving starts and I never feel like that particular item again.  God alone knows what Nik is going to do when I start craving the more unusual foods – Aberdeen is hardly a hotbed of gourmet cuisine!

As if my appearance is not enough to keep people at a distance, I appear to also be assaulting other senses, particularly that of smell.  For some strange reason, on Day 5 I noticed a very strong, sweet smell around me.  I eventually established that the smell was actually emanating from me and that I was, in fact, sweating marzipan.  For three days, my body odour was that of sweet almonds, which appears to have now subsided.  Does this treatment get any weirder?

One of the most disabling side-effects of this treatment has been the fatigue.  I have never experienced such a complete and total lack of energy as this has produced.  On the fourth, fifth and sixth day post chemo, I was rendered completely unable to function.  I had barely enough strength to move from my bedroom to the lounge and spent most of the day just lying watching TV or sleeping.  I was too tired to even read, which for anyone who knows me, is shocking!  At times, even sitting upright took more energy than I could muster.  When I woke up on Day 6, I was extremely depressed.  With most illnesses, each day sees one feeling a little better than the preceding day.  With chemo, it feels as if each day is worse than the last.  The thought of facing yet another day where I didn’t have the energy to pour myself a cup of tea (yes, I am off coffee at the moment) was debilitating.  I felt immensely disappointed with myself.  I had believed that I was strong enough to fight this battle and beat the crap out of the chemo.  And yet, chemo was definitely getting the upper hand.  For someone who has prided themselves on being strong and independent, I found myself having to make sure that Nik was around when I went to shower in case I didn’t have the strength to finish dressing myself alone.  I had to rely on Nik for food and drinks and I was too tired to talk on the phone (imagine that, folks!!!).  I felt like I was not the person that I had believed myself to be.

Later in the day, I contacted a friend of mine who has been through breast cancer and chemo and who is possibly one of the strongest women I know.  I was immensely relieved to hear from her that there were days when she was too tired to get out of bed and that I wasn’t just being a big wussy baby.  I needed to hear that there will be times when chemo is stronger than me and that on those days, I need to just surrender and gather my strength to take it on the next day.  And, following that day, it did start to get better.  I am feeling my strength returning each day and I am enjoying longer bursts of energy and less need to sleep.  I even managed to cook dinner on Day 8 and lunch on Day 10.

I have moments when I fear the next treatment.  I know that these treatments are cumulative and that with each treatment the body is weaker and the effects stronger.  I dread the return of the fatigue, the lurking Horsemen and my hair falling out soon.  But, if I can remember that the side-effects do diminish and the energy levels do increase, I might just have the strength to face it all.

But for now, I just take it one day at a time.

Writen on Tuesday, 04 January 2011 at 09:12