Seventh session

By the seventh chemo session, which ended this afternoon, I should have picked up on the routine, one would think.  I certainly think I have, but then things are always slightly different.  It turns out that my expectations are good for nothing.

When I came from the airport on Thursday, I was full of apprehension.  I had just returned from Thailand where it was warm and I felt great.  Chemo could only be worse, and it was freezing in Switzerland.  Somewhat irrationally, I was dreading what was about to come.

Things turned out all right.  I didn’t feel bad, and even rode my trainer in the evening.  The next day, I went to work to catch up after a week away, and it was all good.

Today, my pump was removed.  The last few times, this was when I collapsed with inexplicable and all-encompassing fatigue.  I went to bed early and slept twelve hours, two or three days in a row.  Today, I assembled two big beds for two still rather small children and am still cruising at 10 pm, getting the blog in order.  My digestion is playing up a little, but I’m not particularly tired.  It’s not a given that every session is worse than the one before.

This one already started better.  My platelet count was robust, my immune cells all normal.  The doctor noticed a weak infection in the thicket of the numbers but didn’t worry about it too much.  “You’re going to survive it”, she said, even with the chemo battering my immune system.

The next two sessions are planned already, the recovery time a day short of two weeks each time to get me back to the Monday schedule I started out with.  Then there’s next Thursday when I’ll undergo another CT scan.  This is to make sure I’m still clean, to rule out any growth inside me since the operation.

More sensitive, delicate or introspective people than me might freak out at this.  What is the need of a CT in the middle of chemotherapy?  The doctor half laughed it off as a routine test, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that someone considers it necessary.  Is there really a non-zero chance of the cancer growing while I fight it with toxic chemicals and moderate exercise?  That would be the end.  But can it really be?  It makes no sense to me.  Instead of questioning what I have no control over, I will now - the pump removed, the side effects all but non-existing - go back to ignoring reality, at least until Thursday.