So I wrote an update a week ago, and my chemo brain prevented me from actually posting it, and I only just found out it was missing when I went to write something new today…so forgive the delay..
The last cycle was actually fine. The best post-chemo week I’ve had in a whole two months. Not even a joke – I felt pretty good for almost the full two weeks. Still fatigued (of course) – but I walked 20 blocks last week and didn’t collapse, I had a huge Rosh Hashanah meal and didn’t feel like I had to s’lichot it back up, and I haven’t really lost any more hair (although I did give myself quite a bit of a mow just to avoid shedding everywhere…)
Which brings me to this past week, and more good news: I had the traditional Yom Kippur PET scan on Wednesday, and – in a nutshell – this s**t is working. The doc said the results were better than he expected, and the lymph nodes have really shrunk. Of course I asked if that meant I could stop the treatment early. He just laughed and laughed.
Then I had chemo Number 5 yesterday, and today I’m feeling spent, but not terrible. So all in all, I have been so terribly lucky with all this. I see other patients here who are enduring so much, and I almost feel guilty that I can’t share their pain.
The chemo has just become a part of my life that I have to endure – like a really annoying bi-weekly gig for terrible clients who fill my arteries with poison and make me sick. It feels like I’ve been doing this since I was 10, but at the same time just started it last week – it’s surreal how it just becomes part of your schedule and routine, even if you don’t really ever get used to it.
Let me wrap this up by imploring anyone who might even be considering it: please don’t vote for Trump. He is just horrible. It’s a shame that this isn’t just self-evident to everyone, but it’s really scary that it’s even close. I made a dumb joke during the debates about him causing me cancer all over again, but then I realized that this might actually be true – my symptoms started around the time he sealed up the nomination, and that just can’t be a coincidence. A lot of people are saying it, believe me.
All my love to everybody – please keep in touch.