I am feeling normal-ish today for the first time since last Monday morning. This past week involved, I believe, the most intense fatigue I’ve ever experienced. One way to describe it is simply that you’re not fully alive. For example, I worked (as well as I could) this past Friday, and I was in a meeting with many participants. In the meeting, I felt like a ghost, peering into a gathering of alive people: people whose brains function normally. It was similar to the experience on my diagnosis day — everyone sure seemed to be talking awfully fast. And normally, I am one of those people.

But this past chemo week, I was a ghost who spent much of the time in bed. Ordinarily my brain moves quickly in a multi-threading fashion (maybe everyone’s does?); there are usually a few things going on in parallel, one idea sparking another. All that shuts down when I’m a chemo ghost.

So, high level observations from chemo cycle 3:

• The on-site infusion experience was so godawful BAD. That feeling of my jaw clenching, and the manic jitters all day long… holy hell, what a nightmare. I am all about medically mitigating these horrors in future infusions, via my friend lorazepam (aka Ativan).
• As noted, much more fatigue this time, over the subsequent days.
• As with cycle 2, pump disconnect day was hard. I drove myself to that appointment, but in retrospect, that was unwise. I was way too brain-fogged to be operating a vehicle. I’ll be enlisting chaperones for the remaining pump disconnect visits.
• More nausea this time. It’s still not something bad enough where I feel I need to take the anti-nausea meds they gave me, but if it gets worse in future infusions, yes, I may give those a shot.

• Lost a few more pounds this cycle, so I am redoubling my efforts to eat eat eat
• On a positive note, there is considerably less pain while pooping. I have data to back this up! For a month now, I’ve been keeping track of every single bowel movement, noting pain on a scale of 1-10, firmness, amount, and any other salient features. This may seem insane, I realize, but in my scenario (rectal cancer), I’m finding it helpful, and actually at times revelatory, to “log” (ha!) the data to this level of detail.

I’ll close things out here with a photo of the stuff I put into today’s smoothie! New additions: prunes, coconut milk (more fat), more walnuts. This one was very filling. All part of the effort to get my weight back up.