I'm Done With Chemo, But Chemo Isn't Quite Done With Me

There's a finish line, right? Like someone holding up a white piece of tape that I can run through with my arms in the air. That way I can cheer and laugh and cry and collapse into a ball because I'm so exhausted from this cancer that I can't bear to stand anymore. I'm envisioning one of those shiny silver foil blankets they give out at the end of marathons. Is that was the end of cancer looks like? Because there's no white tape, no foil blanket. We're not there yet.

It's been 6 days since the "Cisplatin Incident" - it sounds like it could be a Michael Creighton novel. That was a shitty day and although I make everything sound more dramatic (and hopefully funnier) than it actually is, that shitty day is ruining the rest of my week. That Benadryl is like crack. Does crack make you fall asleep or keep you up? Maybe it's like pot - that makes you sleepy I think. Well, whatever illicit drug it's most closely related to ... I slept for the next two days. It's as if I could feel the shit pumping through my veins, waves of it washing over me, making me drowsy but in a nice "ahh, I'm just going to rest on this cloud and close my eyes for just a bit" way. So Thursday and Friday were shot.

We went to the beach for the weekend. My goal there is to sit my ass on the chair facing the water for as long as possible. I envision the healthy cells kicking the shit out of the cancer cells every time I hear the waves crash on the beach. To me, it's like the sound of relaxing calm and cancer death simultaneously. This weekend, it didn't work. All I wanted to do was sleep, inside, not near the ocean, in the climate controlled environment of the apartment. That's a shitty day if I want to be inside rather than on.the.beach.

Sunday night I can tell it's going to be bad. The impending mouth infection. It's creeping. In the past, the sores would have sprouted by Sunday. But this last bout of mucositis is taking it's time to kick in. And it's brewing.

Monday my mouth looks like a leper slept in it. It's gooey and crusty at the same time. Is that possible? It hurts a bit inside my mouth, like down my throat and on the inside of my cheeks - that's nothing new. But these sores all around the edge of my lips make it impossible to drink a cup of water. A straw, you say? I tried. Even worse because I have to make my lips make the "O" shape and that hurts like a motha. Mushy foods, if it all. I've lost 4 pounds. That's the only silver lining.

Can't move my lips much, but I can nearly move my hair! It's almost long enough to brush!

"Other" areas are bad too, but that cannot be discussed in this forum. I'll save that for the 50 Shades of Grey edition of my cancer book. I'm in pain, but more than that, I'm annoyed. I'm tired. It's over - the chemo. Never again. It's just that the finish line is a little further away still.

Will someone be waiting there for me ... with a foil blanket and a Cosmopolitan?? I could really use a Cosmo.