Three days, five showers, no treatments!

With respect to side effects, there was general agreement among “my” doctors, nurses, etc. on certain things:

• Both chemo and radiation make you tired, if not exhausted. With one of them, the tiredness can be abated with naps, the other, naps don’t help. I forget which is which, but it is moot. Naps are not working for me.
• I will get queasy but should not get full-on nausea.
• Rashes and skin irritation often occurs on palms, sole of feet, buttocks, between butt cheeks, and in the folds of skin around the pelvis / genital area.
• My anus may decide to show who is boss and become rather bothersome.
• I may lose any hair in the region of the radiation, i.e., pubic hair.
• Side effects won’t start until the third week, or so, and will continue for three weeks, or so, after treatments end.
• I may get cancer.

Three days after treatment ended …

• I am exhausted. All The Time. Yes, I can function, and this morning I played lawyer at a state special education hearing. I also crashed pretty hard afterwards (in my bed, not my car). And naps don’t do squat. It is an interesting exhaustion, a bit more physical than mental if that makes sense.  Well, even if it does not make sense, that is the way it is.
• I get queasy daily. Usually in the afternoon and evening. So far, pure ginger tea, crystallized ginger candy, and “medical” marijuana work. I am using the marijuana sparingly only because I don’t need to use it more. I have not taken the drugs they have given me in case I need them. Yes, the drug the first chemo nurse said to “take as soon as you get home and every morning.” (So glad my chemo nurse was changed.)
• No rashes to speak of! And no, I am not a Ken doll, yes I have creases, they just stayed healthy! What is interesting is that yesterday and today, while the side effects are increasing, my hands feel a tad different. Almost like I am wearing tight gloves. No rash, and will ride it out a day or two before asking.
• Ah, the end of my rectum, my butthole. Yep, talking about it in public, lol. There was great interest in it, so much so that during the treatments four doctors, a nurse practitioner and a nurse checked it out multiple times. When I asked one doctor why a different one checked it out, the answer was …
  

  That’s my area. They don’t even know what they are looking for.

  Wonderful.

• I have not lost any hair, anywhere.
• As expected, the side effects are still getting worse, but not by all that much. The exhaustion is a bit of a bitch though.
• [Caution, I think my use-professional-language-filter is failing] Cancer? Cancer is a fucking possible side effect of radiation to help cure me of … wait for it … CANCER?! Are you shitting me? “It’s true” they said as I signed the consent. Cancer. What the fuck? I will know if I have more cancer in three weeks when there is more imaging. Cancer. Really? F U.

There is a worry about peripheral neuropathy. That is a nerve condition and often affects diabetics where they either cannot feel their feet, and/or there is numbness and tingling, and/or break-through pain (like a lightning bolt down your leg). I have had peripheral neuropathy for several years for a totally different reason. There is fear it can get worse with the chemo after surgery, no expectation for it to change with this first course. Surprise, it ramped up a bit this past week. Unexpected, we will see if it continues.

Have I mentioned that cancer sucks?

There are three side effects of acid: enhanced long-term memory, decreased short-term memory, and I forget the third.
~Timothy Leary