Week Six of Chemotherapy
I’m halfway through treatment, currently sitting for round seven of chemotherapy, and last week’s cycle started off kind of bad and ended awesome. Because of Thanksgiving I had to go a day early for treatment and unfortunately by Thanksgiving afternoon I was not feeling so hot. Usually the day after treatment I feel ok in the morning and as the steroids wear off by the afternoon, so does my energy. Needless to say I didn’t eat almost anything for Thanksgiving because my appetite has been really bad lately, but I did get to see my mom and do a “COVID Thanksgiving” via zoom, so I can’t really complain.
I continued on my usual downward spiral of low or almost no energy through Friday and Saturday but had just enough willpower to get on the treadmill Saturday afternoon. I rounded out week six of chemotherapy with five days of exercise, one short hike, and my sixth week in a row of exercising five days a week and hiking at least one mountain through treatment. To be honest, this is the most consistent I have ever been in years with doing five days a week of exercise. It’s kind of sad that it took something like this to make me want to get my literal butt in gear and get moving.
Sunday, although I was still feeling pretty yucky because of the chemo, I ended up forcing myself to get outside and do a hike. I ended up doing two small peaks in the Belknaps region and almost seven trail miles. I left the house around noon and finished my hike about half an hour before sunset. The day started out with me still in a fog and by the time I got home the fog had lifted and I was feeling much more like myself again.
Monday's rain was perfect weather for me to be forced to sit down and finally put together the final paper for my graduate class. It took a bit to get the gears moving in my brain, but I pushed through the pull to quit and take a nap, and ended up spending nine hours writing a thirteen page paper that I’m pretty proud of.
Tuesday I woke up feeling much more like myself. Seven days exactly since my treatment had passed and I harnessed the clarity of mind and pep in my step, with my goal being to get outside and hike again. I ended up hiking Welch-Dickey after doing some things around the house. I felt almost like my pre-chemo self, and it finally hit me: chemotherapy is doing something to my body and mind, it’s not just in my head.
Wednesday was another day without treatment (the eighth day in a row) and I once again took advantage of feeling normal(ish) and hiked again. Despite being a little tired I was up at four o’clock in the morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. I spent a couple of hours trying to fall back asleep, gave up around seven, and got my butt out of bed. An eighth day between treatments was a rare opportunity and I was going to hike regardless of the fact that I just hiked yesterday. It was a perfect opportunity to hike another four-thousand footer, and Moosilauke was calling my name.
It wasn’t the easiest hike, my legs were weaker, and the lactic acid was fighting me the whole way, but I pushed through the desire to turn around a few times and made it to the top of Mount Moosilauke in close to zero degree temperatures. I was so proud of myself for making it to the top of that mountain. It was not easy for me to keep going because my legs are weaker and my lungs and heart have to work harder to compensate for the effects of the chemotherapy. But I did it!
Although this past week of treatment started off hard, It ended amazing. On the bad days, when I feel like I can’t make it through another round of this, I remind myself that every single time I think that I can’t keep going, I can and I do. I use the good days that are not far away, as a reminder on the bad ones that all of this is so very temporary, and that I will be ok.
Today, while I’m receiving round seven of treatment, I talked to my nurse about how I’m handling treatment. We talked about how I’ve been doing graduate school, hiking, and pushing through the yucky days. I told her that it absolutely is hard to push through that desire to just rest, the pull of the bed especially, on my bad days. But I told her that I 100% believe that when I push myself to get up and get moving even when I feel foggy it makes a huge difference. I know that everyone handles treatment differently, that I’m getting a more mild chemotherapy drug compared to some, but today my nurse told me that the weekly treatments aren’t easy and there is never really a reprieve for me because I am getting treatment after treatment for weeks. She was really proud of me for pushing through the desire to just lay around and said that many patients don’t do that, which is why they never really come out of that fog through treatment. It was just one more confirmation that what I’m doing is helping me so much and that it’s worth it.
This week also showed me that chemotherapy is actually doing something to me. I tend to chalk up my very real side effects to being figments of my imagination. I’ve spent my whole life having to talk my mind out of believing I am sick or remind myself that when I feel off it’s because of my anxiety, that it’s not real. It makes me less afraid (because quite honestly, all of this is terrifying) if I keep doing normal things, like going hiking or doing school work. This week, having the extra day between treatments was a real eye opener that I am actually experiencing side effects from chemotherapy. It also made me really happy that even being pretty far into treatment I’m still able to live a somewhat normal life. I’m hopeful that in six weeks when I’m done with weekly chemotherapy I’ll bounce right back and feel like my old self within a few weeks. If yesterday was any indication, then I think I’m going to be back to my old self in no time.
