chemo session 3

I've had enough of chemo. I hate it. With a passion.

It's Tuesday morning. 06:30. I want to go to work, but I still feel sick and I ache. The background sickness is still more foreground than background and frankly, I've had enough.

It was a tough session. A session that I'm going to find it hard to write about without making myself feel sicker but my lack of blogging is playing on my mind, like some unfinished homework.

The session was pretty much the same as before, but the last drug, the one that causes me all the "vein pain" (dacarbazine), was twice as painful as before. I can't describe why or what was different, but I felt something wasn't right. One two occasions I demanded the treatment was stopped and in fact, due to time constraints (they are not allowed to administer drugs after 5:00pm, as there are no doctors help in the event of a reaction), I only managed to get 50% of this drug in me. I was hoping this would result in 50% less sickness, but that was not to be.

To confirm my suspicions that something wasn't right, my vein continues to hurt even today. Not all the time, but very periodically ... a sharp pain that shoots into my hand and up my wrist... whilst in itself the pain is not unbearable, it brings with it the sense, the feeling, the taste and the sickness of the treatment ... it's like I'm still having the drug administered into the vein. Hence, five days later and I'm still feeling horrible.

I blame my brain. It's started making all kinds of connections to feeling sick. From now on, Ready Salted Crisps are off my diet list, as are 'egg on brown' sandwiches. Why? I was eating them during my last treatment and had to stop half way through, as I felt horrible. Now, the thought of those crisps actually brings on a very strong feeling of nausea. I guess this is no different from drinking a litre bottle spirits as a kid and spending the next three days feeling like death - just the thought or smell of it will turn your stomach.

The problem I face is that it's getting worse every trip. I actually fear the place now. I'm internally fighting against going back. The most depressing thought I have is that I still have not managed to do a "every two weeks" stint - as each time I have been delayed by my low white blood cells. The thought that by the time I'm back on my feet, it will be a mere 7 days before I return is crushing.

Speaking of the "every two weeks" thing, I have been given a solution to my low white-cell count problem. As of this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I am supposed to impale a 3 inch needle in my gut and push the plunger - to give myself a bone marrow boost.

This is not going to happen.

What is going to happen, is that I will spent 45 minutes standing naked in front of a mirror, shouting at myself for being such a pathetically unmanly human being as I stand poised to plunge the needle but unable to move my arm, before finally getting dressed and crawling on my hands and knees to a nurse in my treatment centre, begging her to put my out of my pathetic misery. It will take her 5 seconds.

Be sure to come back Friday for that blog of frustration.

Since I started this miserable blog, I've had to open a window to suck down some fresh air and drink some lemon and ginger tea. Because I feel sick.

Christ, I'm sick of chemo.

Absolutely sick of it.