Well, it’s back to the 3AM wakeup call for scratching. The itch had gone away during last week’s treatment, but I think I recall the nurse mentioning that they were giving me a steroid as one of my pre-meds. Probably so I’d be looking forward to the next treatment. You know what? I’m still not.
I came to the realization the night before last that I’ve been taking this cancer thing extremely lightly. I mean, yeah we joke about it and I don’t let it get me down and we have a good attitude and all of that. But I realized that night that in my mind, I’ve been thinking about this as I would a cold or the flu. Think about when you get a cold. Assuming you’re not one of the whiny types, you think to yourself that you’re only going to have it for a limited period of time. That you can still work and function like a normal person, you’re just a normal person who talks a little funny and looks like hell.
I’ve come to discover that this is how I’ve been thinking about The Hodge. I know it’s supposed to be one of the more lightweight cancers with a high remission rate, so I just figure that I have cancer for this short period of time and then I’m over it. This might be a good way of looking at it, helping to keep that positive attitude up and all, but I wonder just how much it’s actually hurting me. Not necessarily physically, but mentally. I mean, I keep myself so clueless about what’s going on in my body that I was playing hockey through the last treatments. Sure, I was feeling pretty good considering what I was going through, but at the same time I was hard on myself for having any weakness. During those weak times, I would have to remind myself that I was probably feeling like that because of all the poison we were pumping in my body. That it’s perfectly normal to not feel good after such a thing has been done to you.
Normal if you’re not a badass, that is.
So now I’m trying to teach myself to cope with being weak. I’m not going to be finishing the hockey season. I’m going to have to miss some work. I might take half an hour to go up the flight of stairs to our bedroom. I might be too tired to just sit in one place and stare vacantly into the distance. And I might have a sudden flock of monkeys fly out of my ass.
As you can see, I still have conflicting thoughts on the matter.
Yesterday was a weak day. It didn’t start off that way, though. I had to get my blood drawn in the morning and it turns out that probably every other cancer patient in the world did too. Apparently Mondays are a big office day. Took almost an hour and a half to get my blood drawn and go over to the infusion side to have the nurses check my vitals and ask me questions, since most of the people in front of me were doing the same thing.
I have my schedule for next week set up already – more of the same it appears. Monday morning will start off with an appointment with Dr. D., so I’ll get to find out then if we’ll be sticking to ICE or if we’re changing things up.
At work I didn’t feel too bad at first, but then I noticed as the day progressed I started having that drained muscles feeling. I had to go up and down the stairs a couple of times and I really noticed it then. Fortunately, being primarily a web developer, there’s often not a lot of reason for me to be getting out of my chair during the day.
By the time I got home, I was completely wiped. I made it all the way to the couch, where I decided I’d watch a 15 minute Harvey Birdman that I TiVoed and I fell asleep before the halfway point. Barb came home to find me still in my jacket, sitting in whatever position my body landed in. We were planning on going to Lowe’s to pick up a toilet and sink for the third floor bathroom along with some other supplies for Mike, but I couldn’t do it. She convinced me to go ahead upstairs to bed and went on her own to get as much as she could get by herself. My girl’s always looking out for me.
Just like Jack Johnson said – we’re better together.