A Week in the Life

During the weeks between chemo cycles, you almost forget that you have cancer.  Everything is almost normal.  You so quickly forget the five days of chemo hell that you went through not too long ago.

But then chemo begins again and you begin to remember all too well.  On the first day, you feel only somewhat bad.  Not unlike the brusque onset of a cold, or the jitters after an all-nighter.  You fool yourself into believing this cycle may be easier than the last.

On the second day, the needle hurts and you leave the chemo ward feeling like your veins are filled with paint thinner and petrol.  Your mouth tastes like you gargled with nail polish remover and formaldehyde regardless of what you put in it or how many times you brush, and you begin to realize that the taste, the smell, is coming from you.  You take a shower a few too many times.

The third day is hump day, but the only one doing any humping is your cheery chemo nurse.  You've given up making conversation in your chemo chair, you sit, and try to look less dead than those around you.  You've given up fighting with the nausea.  No amount of medication will save you.  The lining of your guts is slowly dying, sloughing off piece by piece.  You eat nothing.  You drink only for fear that your kidneys may succumb to poison.  You take pills in an attempt to keep consciousness, and all its prickly effects, at bay.

Day four comes along bright and early but you are hardly aware.  By now, days have woven into nights, and you can barely tell where real life begins and the dreams leave off.  There is a full pot of beans on an ancient stove and a Vietnamese baby saying the pot is too small.  You open your eyes, the talking baby remains.  By day four, the chemo juice washes into you easily.  Your veins offer no resistance, defeated, they lie limp and dark.  You return home after chemo, fall asleep and awake to a wave of nausea.  Your body is trying to turn itself inside out.  You try to sleep, the Vietnamese baby returns, this time selling Tudor style candy from a cart.

Day five is the last day.  You barely have the energy to look forward to it.  Today is the last day you will be seeing your chemo team for a while.  You feel vaguely sad, nostalgic.  Remember day one?  Good times.  People tell you that things will look up today.  They don't.

Today is day eight.  The world is just beginning to feel solid again.  Nearer, my God to thee.