The Hangover in These Foolish Things

The days after chemotherapy are kind of weird. It feels like a bad hangover, but without all of the pre-hangover joys of being drunk the night before.

I sit here at my desk at work, nauseated and foggy. It’s been 5 days since I was “unplugged” from Foxy #2. It’s not that I feel terrible, it’s that I just feel off. I can still work and move around (in fact, I feel better when I’m moving around and not sitting in one place), and even laugh and experience joy - had a wonderful heart-to-heart with a guy I really admire here in the office yesterday, and he made me feel so much better. I can do all the things. I just don’t feel my usual healthy self.

I know I’ll feel much better tomorrow - I can just tell. I am a week out from infusion day. I celebrate that week in between infusions because I feel so fucking amazing. My body bounces back before we knock her back down.

I had a zoom call last night with a brand new non-profit org that’s just getting started. I’m joining an advocacy group to help newly diagnosed patients navigate this insane colon cancer world (it’s specific to colon cancer patients). I know that I was and am still overwhelmed trying to understand all of the ins and outs of WTF is happening to me and what can I do and where can I turn? This group’s mission is to help streamline the process and make it easier to understand. The founders’ stories are incredible - these are all colon cancer survivors (mostly Stage IV) who’ve been going down this road for a while and everyone has a unique story, yet we all have this awful thing in common.

The call lasted an hour longer than planned, and I hadn’t eaten anything and was just kind of sick to my stomach and nothing sounded good so I ended up grumpy and just went to bed. My stomach/guts/intestines are completely turned upside down and tied in knots.

Today I woke up meh. Did my workout and got the dog to daycare and on the way to work I was ravenous. But I wasn’t hungry for just my greek yogurt and raspberries which I’d packed into my bag - I wanted something massive. I ended up stopping at the convenience store that has a made-to-order kitchen and ordered a big ol’ ham, cheese and egg croissant sandwich and wolfed it down.

See? Hangover.

And then I got to work and ate my greek yogurt and raspberries for second breakfast. I’m still not satisfied. But I’m also no longer hungry. It’s also almost lunchtime. I will go for my walk.

Anyway. That’s it, folks. I have everything and yet nothing going on. I was super inspired, though, by talking with fellow cancer patients last night who are going and doing things like nothing else is going on in their lives. What I mean is, they are out doing normal things and traveling and living life as fully as possible. I’d like to plan a little weekend getaway or something on one of my off-weekends (when I’m not in recovery mode). Or even start thinking about moving again…

Until later (when I’m less hungover),
GS