Wrapping up my third week of chemoradiation treatment, I can say that the side effects have gotten more pronounced, day by day — as expected.

• In my first week, I had some mild fatigue. In my second week, those side effects became more noticeable: I’d forget things, feel generally slow and lacking in energy. I also started to feel some intermittent nausea in week two. All that was the capecitabine: the chemo pills.
• But in the third week, the effects from the radiation started to kick in: intermittent burning sensation (mild) in my rectum, intermittent periods of bathroom urgency, pain while pooping, and pain while peeing. Occasional butt pain when I’m just sitting (seems most noticeable when I’m driving). All that stuff kept me up last night; I was in the bathroom a lot. Which meant I was sleepy and slow today.
• Brain fog seems to be the worst on Monday evenings, after dissipating on Sunday (I don’t take the chemo pills on weekends).

There are also good developments:

• In the months before I started treatment, I had a lot of rectal bleeding. At one point in April, that actually led to my going to the ER (my GI specialist was worried when I mentioned the blood was a very dark color). The bleeding has almost completely gone away at this point — which is a huge relief. My cancer care team says that radiation often delivers this benefit in a quick timeframe; it’s an initial treatment milestone to be celebrated.
• Also, pre-treatment (Feb – Mar of this year), diarrhea was an everyday reality for me. It was not standard diarrhea. It was nightmarishly explosive, mixed with blood, and often preceded by strange aches throughout my body, shivering, a racing heart: panic attacks of varying intensity. I called these hell nights (sometimes it helps to just give something a name); the next day after a hell night, I was exhausted and could not function. I am very thankful these have stopped, at least for the time being.
• I’m learning how to deal with my anxiety at a deeper, more effective level. Anxiety has always been there for me, and I’ve had some success in the past quelling it through meditative breathing. My care team at Fred Hutch has encouraged me to double down on the breathing, and they introduced me to the 4-7-8 breathing technique — which I’m finding to be very helpful, particularly with bringing me back to sleep during periods of insomnia. I’ll keep experimenting with it. If I can find some way to really get more sleep every night, that would be huge — I’ve been an insomniac for decades.
• I’ve been reconnecting with music from my past, such as Low:

• Other good stuff is happening, too; I don’t fully understand it yet. I’ll write more about this over the coming weeks.

I must also recommend the MidCentury Atomic Age Vintage Retro Culture and Ads Facebook group, which serves up such gems as this 1940 ad. Absurd distractions are helpful!