Round six & the joys of chemo

Wow, I feel like it’s been forever since my last post and I guess that’s because it has! I posted the link to my blog on Facebook and then proceeded to not update it for almost a month. Whoopsies! But here I am, back and ready to write.

My last round of chemo was almost three weeks ago … can I get a, “HELL YEAH!”? It feels so good to say that chemo is over! Obviously my treatment is not done but the super crappy part is and that is pretty awesome. The last round was kind of more of the same, nothing really new and crazy happened. My mother & father in law and Matt all came to keep me company. We colored, listened to music and hung around, listening to my bag of meds beep when it got empty. Sounds like a party, right? 

Not too long after I got settled in for the day one of the nurses came running into my room yelling, “YAAAAAY!” as she placed a gold medal with the word “Winner” on it around my neck. I wore that medal all day and didn’t take it off until I got ready for bed that night. I earned that gold medal, damn it! It will be something cool to look at and think about everything I accomplished over the past few months. Chemo, you’re an asshole and I seriously dislike you and all your bizarre side effects. The rest of this post will be dedicated to all the weird, weird stuff that happened to my body as I went through chemo. Get ready for a glimpse into my life over the past four months.

First, let me start by saying that chemo is not what it looks like on TV. At least it wasn’t for me. I never once threw up or felt nauseated. I’ll tell you what did happen, I got a horrible rash on my face. Rash on my face! It happened after every single round, except the last. About 10 days after my chemo treatment, I would wake up looking like a 15 year old with acne. My face was red, dry & peeling and I had tiny white heads on my forehead and chin. It would last about 4 days and then just disappear. I have Taxotere to thank for that one!

Because the face rash wasn’t awesome enough, I also managed to get an infected eye lash follicle. You guys remember Sloth from “The Goonies”? Yep, that was me. Face rash + infected eye lash follicle = “Heeeey, you guuuuys!” I can laugh about it now but, at the time, I was miserable. My eye was extremely swollen, hurt so bad & my vision was all blurry. I couldn’t wear my contacts or eye make up and I just felt hideous.

So we’ve covered the face rash and infected lash follicle, let’s talk about my nails. I think it was after round four when I first started getting sore nails. Ladies, did you ever have acrylic nails put on? You know how they file down your nails and drill on them and later that day or the next, your nails are really sore? That’s exactly what this felt like. Turns out some people who get this type of chemo experience sore nails and, for the lucky ones, some of the nails actually fall off. So far all my nails are still holding strong but they hurt. When I took my nail polish off today, I was taken aback by what some of them look like. I’m pretty sure some of these suckers are going to throw in the towel soon. Whether they fall off completely or just break off really short, only time will tell. I’m extremely thankful for dark nail polish right now.

Ok, here are a couple good side effects. No hair! You just don’t lose it on your head. I haven’t had to shave my legs or arm pits for months. It has been so awesome! Also, no BO. For reals, I don’t smell at all. I use hippie, natural deodorant that really doesn’t always work super well. I end up smelling like a bum at the end of the day sometimes but ever since I started chemo, I have not had one ounce of body odor. I have no idea why that happens but I’m not questioning it.

My taste buds also decided to take a break. for about 10 days after a treatment. I never got the metallic taste in my mouth but some things just didn’t taste as good as they used to. I felt like I needed to add salt to most things & if something was even remotely spicy, it tasted like ghost pepper to me. Wine didn’t even really taste good all the time :( That’s when you know things are bad.

So there you have it. There are other things I didn’t mention but I’ll spare you the details. It has been quite an experience! My doctor said my hair would start growing back about a month after my last treatment. Guess I should get my razor back out because I’m sure my leg hair will make an appearance pretty soon. The good news is that of all the bad side effects that I experienced, the only things still hanging around are the icky nails and fatigue. Dr. Jekse said that it could take a few months for my energy to get back to normal so I’ll patiently wait.

I have surgery scheduled for Thursday, August 6 and will be off work for a couple weeks after to recover. If anyone has any must watch TV shows or movies, I’m open to all suggestions! After pathology comes back from surgery, I’ll meet with a radiation oncologist to talk about my schedule for that. Radiation is typically 5 days a week for 4-6 weeks. I’ll provide more details as I get them & I’ll try not to let a month go by between posts again!

Xo,

Ali