Weathering the Chemo - Week 1

As most, if not all of you know, I had my first chemo week September 17-20. Since then, it has been 2 full weeks after my last day of chemo. Here's an update on how I've been weathering the chemo.

Week 1 after Chemo:

This first week was pretty rough. Saturday, September 21 - Wednesday, September 25 were my 'bad days'. And when I say my bad days, I mean that I was getting up around 8-9am, going down stairs to the family room, plopping on the couch and just lying there, half in oblivion, half paying attention to what was on the T.V. The positive outcome during this was I didn’t really lose my appetite like most people told me would most likely happen. That in itself is a HUGE blessing! The fact that I still was hungry for breakfast was wonderful. After breakfast, I would continue to lay there, and around 12, I would either fall asleep on the couch, or muster up enough energy to walk back up the stairs to my bedroom and take a nap. When I first started taking naps, they varied around 3- 3-1/2 hour long naps, but as the week went by, they ended up being only about an hour and a half, at the most. Then I would get up, have pain in my stomach from sleeping sooo much and not eating lunch, so I would either have mom make me something, or if I could, I would get something to eat and return back to the couch. The couch was my hub for the entire day, besides my bed for napping and actually sleeping. I also was required to consume a lot of water, making me get up about every half hour and flush all the fluids out. Then came dinner, mom would always make it for me, and just let me know when it was ready. I would find enough energy to take the 10, if that, steps to the table and join her for dinner. Then I would watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, then following that, around 9pm, I would hit the sack. The only problem with sleeping was that since I had ingested so much water, I was waking up in the middle of the night to head back to the bathroom….it wasn’t the most pleasant experience ever. Although, I can say, I barely experienced the nausea that the doctors claimed I would have, never threw up, was a little restless due to my anti-nausea medicine, was extremely exhausted day and night with no energy to do really anything; that just about sums up my first week. I was just extremely tired the entire time, but my naps would get shorter, and I was slowly staying up later and I could see my energy returning, very little energy, but energy nonetheless. By the end of the week, that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I felt almost back to normal again, as the tiredness was slowly slipping away day by day and hour by hour.