The fatigue is completely unpredictable. Completely. Yesterday, I felt almost normal and worked on my dissertation all day. About 8pm I sat down to watch tv and started feeling horrid. Really queasy and exhausted. This morning I felt a bit better, but I had another night of only so-so sleep. It was like Nef was plunking grapes at my head. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Don't sleep. Wake up. WAKE UP! I went to Pilates and felt pretty good but skipped the last 10 minutes of exercises. This afternoon I feel completely normal. Not tired. Nothing. It is completely unpredictable as to when I feel good and when I feel blech.
Calling my chemo Nef has turned out to be super funny for me. I get lots of comments and emails about it. The persona came out of my sleepy mind last week when I was on the steroids. I was laying in bed and sort of drifting in and out of conscious thought and started half-dreaming about advice I got from someone about chemotherapy. I was told to think about it like piranhas chomping their way through my body to kill the cancer. But, instead, in my delirium, I started thinking about the chemo as a Marvin the Martian like creature with a ray gun and a personality like Punch. Both dark and light, Nef is saving me at the same time he is killing me. I know. Far out and weird, huh? But that's where my mind goes when I can't sleep.
The other thing that's happened recently is that we've spent a little money. We're not going on a vacation this year, so instead we bought a new tv (37 inch Samsung LCD), which I haven't really hooked up. It does have an old antenna attached, but no cable or DVD player yet. I need to buy a DVD player and am not sure what to get. Then I need to decide about cable and a recording device. Too many decisions right now, so even though we have the tv I haven't actually really watched it yet.
Right before I was diagnosed, J sold his car. Yes, the hated BMW is gone. It was bad timing because we might have made other decisions had we known how all this was going to turn out. So, he just did a two-year lease on a different car, which is a colossal waste of money, but we need the flexibility right now. He's loving all the bells and whistles (the old one didn't even have a CD player) and thinks it is pretty cool to call me over the Bluetooth thing while driving.
My final purchase was a real pair of sunglasses. The sun has been hell on my eyes and skin since Nef entered my life. My favorite cheap glasses broke so I went to a real glasses shop and bought some that are dark, sort of big, and have polarized lenses. I also bought some Dermatologic facial sunscreen.
In other news, I sent the entire first draft of my dissertation to my editor. I decided an editor made good sense right now. I just don't have the detail orientation I need to pick through tenses and formatting. I'm super excited. I need to have the whole thing to my committee by the end of the month and I should make that deadline.
First of all, yahoo! on the diss milestone. That's FANTASTIC. I hope you can get the MS to your committee by September 1. What a great event that would be.
Though I enjoy learning about Nef's genesis, I'm sorry to hear that she's a jerk. At least you get the occasional good day. I hope there's a good ratio between pain and suffering now and health later. I'm thinking of you every day.
Posted by: Christopher Tassava | August 07, 2008 at 11:23 PM