Weeks Three & Four of Chemotherapy
I’m getting to the point where my memory is lacking and instead of trying to dig through the archives and strain my already tired brain about what week three and four were like separately, I’m putting them all into one post. It’s currently day four of my fourth round of chemotherapy and I am officially feeling cognitively impaired with pretty decent short-term memory loss. As someone who has spent their whole life being “naturally smart”, it’s really hard to sit here and lose brain function week after week, and it’s even harder to imagine how much worse I will be by week twelve. I’m trying really, really hard to stay mentally active along with my physical activity, but this weekend I definitely wanted to drop out of my one graduate class so I don’t have to write the twenty-page research paper that is due in three weeks.
Week Three Summary
The day of chemotherapy for my third round of treatment was rough. I was tired and didn’t want to sit there for three hours being chipper, nor did I want to do the homework that ended up being my entertainment for the entire treatment, but we don’t always get what we want. By Friday morning, I was more myself and ready for class, (or as ready as I'll ever be at this point). I walked in the afternoon, after class, and settled into what I assumed would be the two yucky days, per the usual.
Saturday and Sunday of week three had me fooled. I forced myself to be inactive and rest all day Saturday, and then Sunday I couldn’t take it anymore and ended up doing a bunch of things around the house. Monday and Tuesday, however, were rough. I felt like I was back in my teenage years, sleeping until 11:30 and having all this energy in the afternoon. Week three had two major milestones, though, when I hiked Mt. Major on Tuesday afternoon and Mt. Pierce (a 4000’er) on Wednesday. I was definitely feeling more winded on both climbs, but my Oncologist explained that I am technically down two pints of blood volume at this point, due to lower red blood cells, so I’ll need to pace myself on hikes to account for this.
Finding the balance between wanting to keep being active at my old fitness level and being safe is going to be a challenge in the upcoming weeks. I’m re-learning how to hike at a slower pace, training my legs to slow down, and trying to be content with shorter hikes because I just can’t go for longer than three hours if there is a ton of elevation gain. However, I refuse to stop hiking at least one mountain per week, through treatment. My goal is to hike every week of chemotherapy, at least one mountain, and do five-days a week of some form of physical activity even if it’s just walking. Those are my treats to myself for going through this chemically-induced nightmare and I refuse to give them up.
Side Effects -
Bloody nose every morning unless I put vaseline in my nose at night
Tiredness
Cognitive impairments
Loss of short term memory
Sensory overload on my yucky days
Winded easily and heart has to work harder during cardio
(These side effects are my biggest complaints. Things still taste weird or like nothing at all, I get heartburn easily now especially at night (I never get heartburn usually), and I feel like my hearing isn’t as good especially in my left ear. But all of these things feel minor compared to the brain fog and tiredness.)
Week Four Summary
Today is day four of my fourth round of chemotherapy and this has been the hardest one yet from a cognitive standpoint. I feel like my brain has officially given up and I’m on my own with a body and nothing running it. I forget if I’ve taken my daily medications, I forget what day it is, heck I almost don’t even remember what my age is sometimes thanks to chemo brain. It’s genuinely concerning to me that I have a very substantial final paper due in three weeks and I don’t know if my brain will be able to perform well enough to generate twenty pages on the history of Students’ Right to Their Own Language after 1974 and how it has been or hasn’t been integrated into the classroom. Furthermore, I have other “adult things” that I need to do that I just haven’t had the mental capacity nor the drive to tackle and it’s driving me nuts. I hate not being able to do things that I normally can do so easily, feeling like I’m trapped underwater and in a complete mental fog all of the time, and I still have eight more weeks of this.
Thankfully, although I do have a substantial number of treatments left, I will also have zero homework in three weeks which will be a huge weight lifted. I just have to get through the next three weeks, write this darn paper, and then I can relax a bit.
This week, on the day of treatment, I felt awesome. I went for a three-mile walk afterwards with my mom, and then relaxed. Friday, though, was surprisingly tough. I have class from 9:30 - 12:30 every Friday (via zoom) and I had to tell the professor that I couldn’t participate in the discussion this week and would just have to listen because my brain couldn’t handle it. It sucks being unable to think clearly, and it sucks even more to get mentally exhausted, which leads to physical exhaustion, just from listening to noise of any kind. But I got through it, and ended up walking for forty-five minutes on the treadmill after class ended.
One thing that I’ve discovered over the past two days (my yucky days) is that walking or hiking is an amazing way to turn off my brain for a bit. I got on the treadmill yesterday and just walked, while watching YouTube videos of other hikers on-trail and it felt like a weight had been lifted. To have nothing else on your mind, to just be able to go into autopilot for a bit is a gift that I don’t suppose we all appreciate, as hikers, until it’s no longer part of our lives.
Saturday (yesterday) was a typical yucky day and I’m starting to learn to accept them instead of trying to push through them because then I just end up feeling worse. It’s really overwhelming to think that I still have so many more yucky days left. If I let myself, I can get “inside my own head” and then I start to get anxious about not being able to keep going through this. I get myself worked up and then I get scared, which leads to me not wanting to eat or move, which is the opposite of what I need to be doing to maintain my strength.
When I was going through the whole diagnostic process, the only way I could handle it was by compartmentalizing every single aspect of treatment and only focusing on each part at a time. I focused on the surgery and nothing beyond it until it was time to focus on chemotherapy. I don’t think about radiation or Herceptin or Tamoxifen yet because I can’t, it’s just too much to take in at once. So, when I start to get overwhelmed with the weekend and how sucky I feel, I try to go back to that place where I narrow my focus and only get through each day.
Today, Sunday, I woke up and assumed I would go through my usual pattern of eating, falling back asleep, waking at 11:30 and eating again, then finally feeling capable of tackling life, and I was right. I was able to get some of my homework done this afternoon, do this blog post, and hopefully will be feeling much more like myself tomorrow through Wednesday.
Now today, (Wednesday) I am feeling back to my usual self. I went for a hike yesterday (Mount Gunstock and Mount Rowe), walked Monday and today, and the cloud of mental fog lifted on Monday, like it usually does. I’m not going to say I’m not a little nervous to go back in for chemo tomorrow, because I don’t want to keep experiencing the yucky days for eight more rounds, but I try not to think about that and just focus on each round individually.
I’m not saying that I am doing my best with handling treatment, I know I could be eating better and probably doing more than just laying in bed watching TV a lot, but I also think that some of what I’m doing must be working since I’m still able to function and live an almost normal life.
What seems to be working for me so far and what I recommend to anyone who is going through chemotherapy are as follows:
Drink a ton of water, especially the first 48-hours after chemo (I drink 3 Liters a day now)
Eat smaller meals if you can’t eat, but make sure you’re still eating because it will make you feel better and give you more energy
When you’re tired, rest. You don’t have to sleep, even just laying in a quiet room can make you feel better when you’re mentally exhausted, especially
Try to walk a few days a week at minimum (I’m doing 5 days a week, but that doesn’t mean everyone can do that much). Moving makes a difference, it will give you more energy, and if you can get outside, the fresh air is also wicked helpful in waking you up and giving you energy.
Take a shower even when you’re tired. It will make you feel better and more like a human
Try to do normal things, so that you don’t feel like you’re in the chemo/cancer-vortex all of the time. It’s hard to remember you have a life outside of treatment sometimes, so if you can, do normal things that have nothing to do with cancer treatment every week.
Take advantage of the non-yucky times. Really savor the moments when you are clear-minded and try to get some things done when you have the energy so that you won’t feel as overwhelmed about chores/bills/homework piling up on your bad days.
Most importantly, be patient with yourself. You have the right to rest and give your poor brain a break once in a while, or as often as it needs it.
