Battle Scars

Simply because I've finished chemotherapy doesn't mean everything is easy, back to normal minus the leukemia. Granted I'm early in the recovery process, but even I had to be kicked in the teeth to be reminded that my body is far from normal. A few days ago I thought I'd go for a 30 minute run. Everything was feeling ok, so I thought it would be good to work up a sweat to help detox. Well, about half-way through the run my abdomen started screaming. I had to stop and double over to try and get the pain to stop. I was with a friend so I didn't want to walk all the way back. We ran it in and I paid for it with 48 hours of excruciating pain in my abdomen. The pain is still there, but I'm not having to take handfuls of pain meds anymore to be able to tolerate the pain. Running is off the docket for a bit longer. I don't need to have that experience again.

The chemo drugs beat up my joints, ligaments and tendons causing pain and weakness. For example, I have to focus when I pick up anything to keep my wrists straight. They are so weak that they immediately bend backwards adding to the pain. And I'm not talking heavy things. I'm talking a cup of coffee in my favorite mug.

I didn't lose my hair, but my normally silky hair has the texture of straw. The benefit is that can I actually get my hair to stand up in all kinds of directions without any product and it looks thicker even though it has thinned some from the chemo.

Did you know that some chemotherapy drugs can cause people to be sterile? Well, in women that means menopause. This last round of treatment was what broke the dike and overloaded my system. In addition to having treatment side effects, add onto that hormonal side effects of my body being thrown into immediate menopause. Hot flashes overlaid on top of the chills from the chemo, not fun. I hear a collectal cheer from the women like "Yay, no more periods". Actually, menopause is not a good thing for women, because it causes a woman's body to age faster. So, gals change your view about your monthly cycle. My situation might be a temporary menopause and I'll recover or it might be permanent. So, I've got chemo-brain and off-the-charts PMS. Lovely. Poor Dan, having to deal with me.

I could go on with the battle wounds, but I'm hoping most will go away and not be permanent issues. Besides the physical battle wounds, chemo had an impact on my psyche. I thought having leukemia changed me. It did. But going through the intensity of chemotherapy, changed me. I'm still sorting through things and looking forward to more time to live life to the fullest.

Finished with Chemotherapy

I can gratefully say that I have finished the 6th and final round of chemotherapy. I'll have a series of tests in July and August to determine how well the chemotherapy worked. I'm not whooping it up, because it hasn't sunk in that I'm finished with chemo. I suspect in about 3 weeks when I'd be thinking about the next round, it will hit me that I'm finished. Then I'll start celebrating.

A number of people have said to me, "Wow, it went so fast." Yes, time goes fast. However, for me, chemotherapy did not feel like it went by fast. It was painstakingly slow. The week prior to the next round of chemo, I would start dreading what I had to go through during chemo and the couple weeks after as the chemicals wreaked havoc on my body. So, No, chemotherapy did not go by fast, but Yes, I'm so glad that I'm done.

Prior to my final round of chemo, my oncologist said to me, "I never thought you'd get this far." I didn't ask him what he meant by that. Perhaps, he thought because I was so sick during the first few rounds of chemo, that my body wouldn't tolerate the full 6 cycles. Or maybe, because I started getting increased infections, the treatment might have had to be stopped because my immune system was so beat up. Or maybe, as in what happened to a friend of mine, the chemotherapy actually causes the cancer to start growing faster, and it could have sent me spiralling downward to death. But I suspect the real reason might have been that I'm so ornery that my doctor worried that I might have said, "Enough. I can't tolerate what chemo is doing to my body. No more." Ok, I admit, I may be ornery, but I'm definitely not stupid and I knew I needed all 6 rounds of chemo to have a chance at a remission.

Now I'm in recovery and rebuilding mode. In addition to my immune system being pretty much decimated, I am now out-of-shape from being inactive for 7 months, I have various aches & pains from the drugs, my liver is stressed along with other internal organs, and my fatigue levels are still sky high. So, the way I figure it, as I said in a previous post, "I have today." And today I am Oh so happy to have survived (literally) chemo.