Recently in Chemotherapy, Part 2 Category

You can puke without interrupting the flow of conversation.

The chemo is over, and if all goes well, I'll never have it again, yet I still feel like shit. I still puked this morning, although weakly. I still have an awful taste in my mouth. I still have this gremlin in my throat that makes me want to voluntarily barf, as though there were anything to bring up. I am now 169 pounds. A week ago I was more than 180.

But worse than all that, or as as result of it, I don't really like myself at all. I have a feeling of worthlessness. I have little money, and I won't have any for a while. I hate my living circumstances. I feel stupid, listless, sad and angry, although not explosively so the way I did in October. I don't feel as though I can attend to anything properly. I wonder what I am doing at work and why they even need me at all. I better understand people that feel as though they are fakes about to be discovered. I have a make up exam tomorrow that I doubt that I will even write because I cannot even find the material I need to study. It's not even that hard, but I will fail this course. I will be a failure yet again. I can barely find the will to move. I feel like a skeleton in many ways.

Two days left of chemo, and I am feeling something that I am not familiar with. Something I have finally been able to identify. I want to be saved.

I never, or rarely have felt this sensation. But I desperately want to be saved by some outside agent from this viciously vomitous (not a word) state. I can't even trust my own saliva or my breath not to send me into gagging fits. (I am puking as I type this with one hand.)

Rose makes everything better. She can see the end when I cannot. She buys little things that I can eat, will draw baths for me when I can't bear it (can't take showers with this apparatus) and generally not forget about me. She saves me. She's away braving the storm, taking her daughter back to her ex. I can't wait for her to get back, although I will likely be too ill to show my appreciation properly. I can barely speak as it is.

But even with this generous support, I still slip into helplessness and despair. Some people feel like this all the time. I couldn't live that way, that's for sure. Tonight, I will go to sleep early to try to bring on day four that much sooner. Then there will be only a little more than a day left when I wake up. Sadly, I will be on my own since Rose has to work. And I will want to be saved again.

This time, it's the last time, unless something goes wrong in the future...

An hour after getting the chemo pump removed and I already feel a little better.

A friend in Japan has sent me a book called The Enzyme Factor. It is a book by a Japanese doctor that has treated cancer and gastrointestinal patients for forty years. His theory is that gastrointestinal health determines health in other areas; that is, if we aren't healthy there, we won't be healthy anywhere. Further, he believes that enzymes are the key to this health. He thinks that the specialized enzymes we see all the time come from a source enzyme that specializes only when needed, and that we have a limited number of them at any given time. It's similar to stem cell theory. Reading the beginning of this book is like reading a detailed list of the things I did wrong to put me in the situation I am in now, which is dreading the last five days of chemo, scheduled for next month.

According to the author, it's all about what you eat and drink. This should not come as any surprise as we've been hearing it for years. But look at this: it's entirely possible that my cancer started developing as soon as I started eating meat again a couple of years ago and started drinking Eastern teas, both green and black. So perhaps in order to avoid a relapse, I should avoid meat, among other things. I don't know. I'll finish the book and get back to you. But I have to say that I am not keen on the last round of chemo. I don't even believe in it; I may simply not do it. It's not like they can strap me down and force me. We'll see.

When's the last time you vomited and why?

And we'll see how the anti-vomit pills (and suppositories) work this time. And it's time to shave again. Being cancer bald was fine in the late summer/fall. Not looking forward to it this time.

Last night I felt ill in anticipation; this morning I gagged. I came home with more pills than before as well as a puke bag. I'm not the best person for taking all his meds on time, but you can bet that I will be vigilant, at least for the next five days anyway.

I better news, all my papers and such are where they should be, so I will continue to get paid as well as go back to work part time on December 3, the Monday after next. The following week, Rose gets her promotion and starts working days. Now those are things to get happy about.

I feel ill already.

Somebody save me...

I thought I would try to play poker on Facebook, but naturally it's DOWN. At least chemo is over for now. Unfortunately I can't go back to work until next month instead of next week because of chemo scheduling and the fact the it kicked the living shit out of me this time around. I knew it would be bad this time.

Time is moving so SLOOOOOOWLY. Either that or I am moving at light speed. I remember taking trips to the supermarket that would last 60-90 minutes, and now I am back in half an hour, leaving all the more time to kill. And that's most of what I do these days. Killing time. Part of why I was taking sleeping pills in the past few days was just to make the next day happen faster. It's like I wake up so that I can go to sleep at night, or whenever. Of course, one major reason for that is that that would mean that chemo would be over that much sooner. Another reason is that I had slept (from boredom) in the afternoon and couldn't sleep at night.

If a sign of depression is that the things that interest you no longer do, then I am certainly depressed, or at least showing signs of it. I am looking forward to telling this to my shrink on Friday.

In years past, this time of year should see me at my best and brightest. Alstember, I have recently dubbed it. It ranges from about October 21 to November 20, around the Scorpio cycle. I used to be able to do anything. I could make money, meet women, do well at work, travel. Anything I wanted to do. In the last several years there has always been something to kill that strength. It's probably just me, as these things usually are. There wasn't some kind of magical power in the universe that made me Superman around my birthday, it was just all in my head. But still, it felt like magic, and that magic is gone. For good reason this year, but still. There's always some damn reason.

Chances of making it to Yulblog tonight ~ 30%.

UPDATE: That took all of 4 minutes to complete. Many hours to go before I sleep...