good news

I thought I'd give it some time to see how I felt about last week's treatment. It's still a little hard to tell the story, so I imagine if I had that nurse for treatment again I'd be just as much if not more anxious than last time. So, I called my regular nurse and asked if they could ensure I don't have her again, and she said yes of course no problem, she'll check the day before to make sure they know not to let me have Nancy... and if possible, assign me to Carmen.

Me: "Ooh, Carmen, I liked her."
Her: "Yeah, everybody does. There was one guy who had [the every-week/3-month treatment I ended up not being selected for] and he had to have Carmen every time."

So I feel a lot better about that now. She said the younger age group is more likely to have pre-treatment anxiety anyway, so it's good that I told her about it rather than letting something else happen. It's kinda funny, I would've thought the young 'n' ignorant I'm-invincible crowd would be less anxious than the older life-experience death-is-a-part-of-life am-I-going-to-die? crowd... but whatever.

Mentally, the chemo is finally starting to wear on me. Not so much in the "is this going to work?" sense -- obviously it's working -- but rather just as an annoyance, i.e. "oh boy, 3 more months of this crap." I'm not "bouncing back" as quickly after each session, and the lethargy is less but the food-indecision is more. That is, it's very hard to decide what to eat for a few days after treatment, until I think of something that sounds really appetizing, then I have to go with it. A few weeks ago it was Velveeta Shells 'n' Cheese... another time it was Long John Silvers... last week it was pizza. This is particularly inconvenient when I'm at work and bring a packed lunch, but then at 11:30 decide a peanut butter sandwich just won't go down. It's not helped by the feeling in my throat that the anti-nausea drugs create (sort of a "blockage that's not a blockage"... not sure how else to describe it) and the coating on my tongue that's hard to get rid of.

But another way to look at it is to think how quickly the last 3 months went by, or even the past year. A year ago I was playing for Schoolhouse Rock rehearsals. And I still haven't completed all the things on my list I supposedly was going to get done over my summer vacation. :)