Feeling Like March

Here I sit, on the eve of the final stretch: one more full week of chemo/radiation to go, plus one last zap on Monday, March 14, and I'll be finished with this phase.  Whew.

It's a good thing it's winding down, too, because with one week to go, I'm finally starting to feel like a cancer patient - but just a little, so don't panic.  The past month has been much easier than I expected it would be.  I've had just some minor fatigue and the occasional bout of nausea, all effects that appeared and waned within a couple of hours every time.  But not this weekend.  Yesterday, I started to feel pretty sick in the evening, and that lasted into the night.  Today, I feel like the weather.  It's warm out, but it's also rainy and gray and muddy, and just...blah.  I don't feel violently ill; I just feel worn out and vaguely queasy and not quite right.  March isn't coming in like a lion.  It's coming in like a giant slug.

So if you see me during the next week, I may look like Charlie Brown, but I'm OK, even if I don't quite respond to your greeting or don't seem as if I'm all there.  I don't need anyone to worry or to rush to take care of me.  You've all left us with a freezer full of good food, and the kids' schedule is more or less set with the help of some good friends.  Just understand if I'm a little...vague for the next few weeks.  The nurses tell me that the side effects will most likely fade by the end of March, at which point I'll be very happy to move on to a stretch of what feels like normal life for a while.

I still think a few weeks of "bleah" is a small price to pay for survival.