I am often asked if people can visit. The answer is always the same, call me before you leave home to make sure I am OK. Don’t call me the day before because I will not know how I will be doing the next day. And even then, there will be surprises. Visits are also usually short since I tire so easily. I have written about this before.
My friend Gita wrote me to say she wanted to visit today. I asked her to call me before leaving her house which she did. I was fine and gave her the green light. The situation was dramatically different by the time she showed up.
The first chemo was an unknown. I was not sleeping well at the time. The combination of the two made it hard to handle the series of events that took place.
The situation was markedly different this time around. Diarrhea was expected to hit around Monday or Tuesday, and it came right on schedule. It was expected and not traumatic. Easily handled.
We had Ethiopian food for dinner last night This is the second time I have had spicy food. The first was when my friend Judith brought over some Indian food from my favourite Indian restaurant Utsav in Yorkville. The spicy foods keeps me awake as the stomach works overtime dealing with the unexpected surprise.
I do not get stomach cramps. There are no aches or pains. The only benefit of this bag thingy hanging on me. Gas rolls through the bowels and explodes into the bag with a hissing noise. The system then growls and wheezes and makes all sorts of noises as it deals with the spicy invasion. All of which keeps me awake.
I finally went to bed at four in the morning, and as I have said before, guilt free.
I was fully ready for Gita when she was due. I was peeling a pomegranate, one of my all time favourite fruits. I find the peeling a bit therapeutic. You just cannot rush the experience. So there I am in an apron standing at the kitchen counter peeling away to make sure the pomegranate is ready for Gita.
I was almost done when I started feeling hot. Flushed. Hard breathing. It took me a bit too long to realise that I was feeling nauseous. I rushed, and I use that term loosely, upstairs to take my nausea pill. It is hard to know where to keep all these pills. Took the nausea pill and went back downstairs to wait for the effects to take hold.
I have had nausea a couple of times. I have these wonderful nausea pills that take care of things almost instantly. You just have to take them right away. Which I did not in this case. I sat downstairs, upright, and waited for it to pass. It took a while, way longer than I like. I was not fully recovered by the time Gita showed up. Jill sent me some ginger candy to suck on. They help with nausea. I took one of those as well.
We talked for a while. Devin warmed up some pizza that was in the freezer. Good times. I took a nap after she left and woke up in time for dinner.
I am going to get my H1N1 vaccination in the morning. I am looking forward to this. Here is the issue. The vaccination may result in me having a temperature for which you are supposed to take a Tylenol. But I am not supposed to take Tylenols to cover a temperature created as a chemo side effect. What to do?
Check list:
Diarrhea: gone
Nausea: gone
Temperature: none
Blood: only in my veins
Hair: intact
