It's Chemo time

I shaved my head on Tuesday. Okay, Shawn shaved my head but I did the first ceremonious cut with the scissors. I almost couldn’t do it. I said I’d do it on the weekend, but since it was a long weekend, I waited until the very last minute. I guess I really didn’t want to deal with the bald look until I absolutely had to and the truth was, I was scared. People have asked me why I was going to do that, why didn’t I wait to see what would happen to my hair, maybe I wouldn’t lose it all, so and so had cancer and they didn’t lose their hair… So and so didn’t have my kind of meds obviously and didn’t have their doctor say to them, you’re gonna lose your hair, it’s a matter of when and he predicted within 7 days of my first treatment. Well, I guess I showed him! It's gonna be gone even before chemo starts, ha! I don’t want to lose my hair, but I will shave it off. To me, the difference is night and day. One I can control and the other I can’t. So it’s done. It isn’t even that bad, but of course I do still have some hair, I wonder what I’ll think when the stubble falls out and all that’s left is scalp. I think I’ll think that I’m glad I took it off on my terms and watching stubble fall out in the shower or on my pillow is better than seeing big clumps come out, screw that.

Yesterday was my first treatment. It took about 2 hours to get into the chemo clinic at Princess Margaret because Monday was a holiday and they were packed but they warned us they would be. It took about half an hour after they called me to get my drugs from the pharmacy as they were behind, and then it took another 2 hours to administer the drugs. I felt alright yesterday, came home from the hospital tired but I dunno if that was the meds or the fact that we’d spent all day at the hospital and we were both so drained. I wasn’t in the mood to see anyone really, so we just chilled out and went to bed at the reasonable hour of 11pm. That's when the fun started. I had conflicting information on what I’d go through during chemo. I was told that I shouldn’t celebrate in the first few days of my treatment when I wasn’t sick as it would most likely get worse. I wouldn’t feel really bad until day 7 to 10 because that’s when the platelets are low, etc. Okay, so what the hell was last night about? I woke up at 1:30am and had my first purge. Got rid of all the food I’d had during the day. Then at about 3:30am, the bile came up. It tasted awful, I know that sounds dumb as puke isn’t exactly appetizing, but this tasted just awful! After that, I got up every hour until about 9:30am in the morning but it wasn’t as bad as the first few times as it was just clear, other than being so exhausted from getting up. Poor Shawn is so helpless on what to do, that must be so frustrating but he’s so awesome. He stayed home from work because he was worried about me and I was glad he did. Today was rough, I can’t sugar coat it. I was and am scared to go through this and as I’m typing this I’m starting to cry but I find solace in telling myself that I will get through this and be stronger for having conquered this but it is hard. When you’re nauseous you wonder if you’re ever going to feel good again. I’ve had a headache since treatment yesterday and been uncomfortable and exhausted for most of the day. I wasn’t able to keep the anti-nausea pills down in order for them to help, so I may need to think about an anti-nausea suppository (ewww, sooo gross!) for the next phase as I don’t want to feel this bad and if I can avoid it I’ll try and find a way. I took my steroids as prescribed. They made me feel better I think once they kicked in & I instantly felt better after smoking a joint. I finally did at about 3pm or 4pm this afternoon. I didn’t want to but I’m so glad I did! It’s sad to me that this is illegal, seriously. There are people going through this and being in pain and they really could just smoke a dube to feel better, even for a short while. When you’re that sick, even a half hour reprieve is better than nothing! Before I smoked, I couldn’t keep a popsicle down. Right after, I felt like I could eat a steak and my mood was instantly better. I just felt better. My doctor would’ve prescribed me THC pills, but not actual pot to smoke. The conundrum is that when you’re puking, pills don’t really help, do they? Smoking did, instantly. I was finally able to keep down some food. I had tried a banana and popsicles this morning but both resurfaced. I had some chicken broth that the neighbour brought me from swiss chalet, and that stayed down thankfully although I didn’t eat the chicken or veggies, just the broth part. After I smoked, I had some pudding, 6 saltines, some pretzels and a handful of apricots. I’d say that’s pretty good. It’s going on 8pm and I have yet to be sick again. I hope this Kytril and Dextamethasone (or whatever the steroids and anti-nausea pills I’m taking are called) lasts until the morning. Wish me luck!