2 down, 4 to go...

My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats. ~John Cheever, letter to Philip Roth, 10 May 1982, published in The Letters of John Cheever, 1989, concerning his cancer and its treatment.

While I only have my veins filled every three weeks (let’s just say that one delay was a fluke), I am not mean to cats, but I am bald as an egg.  (Remember cha cha chia??  Now it is the egg commercial—the incredible, edible egg).  I woke up the other night, sweating under my still to be named night cap, looked over at my dresser-- which houses the Scarlett, the Lizzie and the newly named ferret—Friar Tuck --and was like crap, I look like a friggin egg and I have hair sitting on plastic frames--this sucks.  Well, at least  I still have my eyebrows (for the moment anyway). 

I completed Round 2 this week and am happy to report Oxycodone is a miracle drug.  The leg pain was bearable and contrary to Estell’s worry I am going to end up in the Daily News in the arrest section, I only took it at night.  (Estell is the Assistant Library Director and my immediate boss).   I will admit, while I appreciate the lack of pain,  it makes me feel too strange so there is no need to worry.  Nothing like waking up every 5 minutes thinking you have slept for days and sweating like crazy and not even be hot flashes.  But again, on the positive side, I did not need much of the nausea medicine and the week was not bad at all.  I did feel bad for Laurel, as she was here this week and I was napping most of the time.  Still, it was nice to have her here.  I am sure just laying eyes on me and aside from the hair, I still look the same—not like a cancer patient.

I would like to focus on the fatigue factor for a moment.  Never in my life have I ever been so tired.  So much so I gave into said boss (and others who will remain nameless until I feel like picking on them) and until this is over, I promised I would a) not be a second person, I would always be a third so I could come and go and b) accept with open arms the fact I will need help from others and to just deal with it.  Strangely enough, it took me maybe 8 hours to accept this—who says stubborn people can’t change!

I also gave up my Sunday School class until the fall.  Now that was hard as if you remember they ground me.  There is nothing better than something through the eyes of a child.  They are blunt, honest, don’t realize they should not ask certain questions and are not concerned with political correctness, they just want to know.  Granted there are many cringe moments, but still, they treat me as if I am not sick, and at times, that matters. 

 It is Monday and I have survived—and it was not bad at all, it was all controllable and while I understand the side effects and fatigue usually get worse as the treatments continue, I can deal with it.  After all, the cup is half full!