Intensification

It's intense. I feel terrible. I finally feel like my body is dying. I know that sounds melodramatic and that most people have worse side effects and feel more bad than me (yeah, more bad) and all of that... but I imagine most of you are reading this because you want to know how either a) I'm doing, or b) what it's like having Chemotherapy.

The answer to both of those is: Crappy.

I feel bad. All over. My stomach hurts. All the time. My back hurts. All the time. And it's not like dramatic puking, dying... it's like it hurts. There is a general feeling of badness. I have drugs for Nausea (nope), Anxiety (not really), Pain, and Sleep. All of them make my stomach hurt more. Tonight the hot bath did nothing which I found particularly depressing.

Here's something that made me mad today. AC gave me a Cancer Cookbook (that was nice, I appreciated that) with all this advice about what foods to eat to avoid cancer and what to eat while you're undergoing Chemo and FUCK I already eat all of the fucking cancer fighting foods. All the time. And I did before. And I still got leukemia. Even though I eat tons of AntiOxidants. And for the last time (this is directed at the cookbook and all cancer websites) I AM NOT NAUSEATED I DO NOT NEED ADVICE ABOUT HOW TO FIGHT NAUSEA I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE MY STOMACH STOP HURTING ALL THE TIME CAN'T SOMEONE TELL ME THAT?

I think what makes this so disappointing is how high I was riding at the end of Induction. My oncologist was pretty clear that both Induction and Intensification were the hard part--and that this whole 8 weeks was going to suck, but I just assumed that because the first half was over, I was Superwoman. Lately I do not feel like Superwoman. Or Iron Woman. Or Wolverine. I feel like whiny, sick, Jessie. All week I've been having these really intense moments where everything gets So Bad that I think the world is ending. What it means is that I need a nap--ASAP. Today I made the mistake of having a phone meeting with a Partner Org that I knew would kill me inside. Sure enough, 55 minutes into the conversation I wanted to curl up into a little ball on my office floor. I had to cancel my coffee with my New Cancer Friend and go home and sleep for 3 hours. I haven't managed to bounce back since--even though my Chemo nurse was waiting for me today and got me in and out of the Treatment Center in 20 minutes. (That's my gratitude of the day).

Tomorrow I have to go back to work because I have things to do. I am in the middle of free-writing about why it is that I'm working. It's good for me to think about this all a little harder.