The Rhythm of Chemo

I’m waiting for someone to drop by and pick up a table. I can’t think of anything else to write at the moment, so I thought I would write a bit about the beginning of my next chemo cycle. This will probably be the biggest topic on my mind for about the next eight days.

I live my life in three-week cycles. Basically one week out of every three I feel a bit off, and downright sick for about four days of that week. Every third Tuesday I get a chemotherapy infusion, and the next one is tomorrow. So while I’m technically on the last day of my previous cycle, it feels like Monday is the start of my next cycle.

That’s for two reasons: First, I need to take two steroid pills on the day before my infusion, which is today. (Also I get a steroid in the infusion tomorrow, and I take steroid pills the day after the infusion.)

Steroids have a significant effect on me, mostly my brain, which starts to race at a million miles an hour through about Thursday, then I crash and burn. In the meantime I have trouble sleeping Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. Steroids also upset my stomach a little bit. Less so now that I take half the dosage I was taking before, for just that reason.

So on Monday I start to “feel” different, a day before the infusion, because of the steroids.

The last few cycles I’ve noticed a second effect: I start to feel some of the effects I experience after the infusion a day or two before the infusion. I’m sure it’s purely psychosomatic, but it’s real. I feel less appetite, I feel a little queasy, I start to burp and hiccup a little more, and this time, I started to get a little congested yesterday.

I asked the infusion nurses about it to see if I was crazy, and they all said that yeah, a lot of long-term chemo patients experience that. There’s some kind of triggering effect of knowing that you’re about to start the next round of chemo.

It’s a weird feeling.

I’m going to ask my oncologist tomorrow about another issue I’ve just noticed over this past weekend: The grip strength on my right hand has gone down pretty dramatically. I’m suddenly unable to pull open one of those fruit cups with the plastic tops with my right hand. I can’t grip the plastic tab with my thumb and forefinger tight enough.

I don’t know if it’s related to chemo or cancer, but they constantly ask me about the feeling in my hands and feet. Apparently chemo can cause nerve damage over time, and it starts in the hands and feet. I also have a minor history of carpal tunnel syndrome (I assume) because of a lifetime of keyboard usage.

Anyway, time’s up.