The first few days were uneventful; I thought maybe I was going to coast through this one, but I didn't want to celebrate until at least a week passed. I'm on more steroids with these doses; I have to take them for 3 days, 24mg a day of Dexamethasone! That's a lot! Just to put that in relative terms, a 'shock dose' of this drug is administered at 4 to 8 mg intravenously initially, to a total dose of 24 mg. I get that dose in one day for 3 days total!
Long term therapy would have you ingest only 0.5 to 1.5 mg per day. 1mg per day is body-building dose, which is a 24th of what I take orally in a day. So if this is the case, then we could logically state that a body builder would take an average of 1 mg a day for 64 days. 2 months to make it easy. So what someone looking to bulk up will take over 2 months is what I get in just 3 days. And this repeats every 3 weeks for me. Please take this in consideration when wondering how I've gained so much weight so quickly! It's said to avoid more than 1.5 mg daily, because serious side effects are more frequently encountered with higher doses. Some side effects? Here they are from my info sheet on this drug: Increased appetite leading to significant weight gain (check), muscle atrophy (check), negative protein balance, psychiatric disturbances including personality changes, irritability, euphoria, mania (certainly possible but I'd be the wrong person to answer this) hypertension, fluid and sodium retention, edema, dependence with withdrawal syndrome is frequently seen. This last one not so much, but let's talk about appetite. Raise your hand if you picture someone going through chemo as wrapped in a blanket on a rocking chair really sick and tired and sucking chicken broth through a straw which is usually forced by a care giver. Okay, fair enough, the same as I pictured too.
Now picture this.
On Saturday morning I woke up at about 6am. Before my eyes even opened, I was thinking about what to eat. I should let you know here that a part of that scenario isn't strange, ie: me waking up at the crack of dawn. I'm so annoying like that. I'm sure that most would be surprised to know I'm a chipper morning person. I wake up early every day, regardless of whether I need to work. Before this summer, I'd say waking up between 7:30am-8:30am on weekends was the norm. Now it's closer to 6:30am-7am. I get out of bed when Shawn goes to work during the week, which is about 6:45am. I don't want to, I just have no choice. I'm not able to go back to sleep once my mind starts, which it does every morning at this time. There are exceptions, such as today when I didn't get up until 8:50am and I'm in the best mood as I feel I've slept in! I've dealt with some type of imsomnia throughout my life so that's kind of prepared me for what I'm going through now. Not only do I wake up early, but I'm ready to start my day, I want to talk about everything and my mind races the most during this time, much to Shawn's dismay. It doesn't need to be said that morning and Shawn aren't friends; they just don't get along at all so they avoid each other. Okay, he has his days where he's got up early too, but he'll be affected by that grand gesture mid afternoon. I on the other hand don't nap, ever. I wish! Some people tell me that'll change later in my treatment or while undergoing radiation, but we'll see.
So, as usual, on this morning, my mind is going in a hundred different directions before my eyes open, and the streaming thought is: I want chicken noodle soup. Now. I want it now. Chicken noodle. A big steaming cup of it. The Lipton's kind that is really salty and comes in a package, not a can, with the little noodles. I need to eat that. Right now. Wait, it's not even light out yet! Doesn't matter; it's between the soup and Shawn's arm that is draped over me. I throw the covers off, grab Milo, head downstairs to prepare the coffee maker for Shawn (for 5 hours from now) and get the pot for soup out. Rip open the package, start the process. It's still dark outside, I'm not joking. I was ravenous and couldn't heat it up fast enough! Normally when I make this soup I'll beat an egg and add that during the last minute of cooking for extra protein and flavour, but no eggs today; there simply wasn't time! Just the soup. I was so happy and excited when I finally sat down on the couch and wrapped myself up in a blanket and spooned in the soup. It was so good! I finished all of it, the whole package, which is a litre of soup! It wasn't even 7am yet. I lay on the couch for the next few hours watching my recorded episodes of Grey's Anatomy while fighting with Milo for space. My dog is ridiculous. He's about 80lbs now and really believes he's a lap dog. It's no longer cute. He won't simply lie beside me, it has to be on top of me, but he does this in a way where you don't want to move him, let's out the big sigh while nuzzling into your neck. That's when it's cute, pictured here.
It's not when you get a paw across the face as he's digging his elbows (is that accurate canine terminology?) into your ribs, pictured more accurately here.
And he piles himself on top of you instead of beside you; an especially dangerous move while you're sleeping! I mean, there's room on the couch for two comfortably but with Milo it's 3 on the couch and only one of us -the non-human family member- is comfortable.
It's especially charming when guests come over to relax and unwind with a nap on the couch, pictured here with Carm.
Poor dog, he tries to compromise occasionally by simply working around us and is known to offer valuable insight into my work, pictured below with me.
Anyway, by 9am, I'm on the couch with Milo and I'm starving again. Now I'm thinking about the left over souvlaki I had from the night before. We got take out from the Ballroom (a bar Shawn used to frequent a lot) last night. They have awesome souvlaki, so we both ordered the large souvlaki with rice and roast potatoes. I used to order the small, but the quality of souvlaki isn't as good and I just make it two meals. Miraculously I didn't lick the plate last night so I still have some left (must've been thinking about dessert). It's not even double digits in the morning yet and I'm about to have my 2nd breakfast. Breakfast being an appetizer of 4 cups of chicken noodle soup followed by souvlaki, rice and roast potatoes. I'm trying to be deadpan while writing this, but how crazy is this to picture? This is my life and the consequence is my body image right now, but I can't deal with everything all the time. I didn't have any choices as far as I could tell either. It was about ingesting all of this or else turning to cannibalism. I've never had hunger like that ever! It was scary! Picture my hands wrapped around the plate of food similar to Gollum from Lord of the Rings looked while holding the ring or "his precious." 
Never seen the movie? Here you go (drawing taken from angryflower.com)
Never seen the movie? Here you go (drawing taken from angryflower.com) And it simply would not subside. I mean, right after I ate, I wasn't hungry, every time I felt sick and then thought okay, that'll be it for a long time. But the hunger would return a few hours later. This has gone on to a degree surrounding every treatment, but the last one was the worst! Why can't I crave salad and broccoli and oatmeal? It's just got to be carbs and meat, salt and sweet! *sigh* Carm will certainly have her work cut out for her in the New Year when I go to her and tell her to get all this weight off me! :P But it will happen, I have to be patient and get through my now and worry about my next year, well, next year.
.JPG)