The Good: From day one I heard about the dreaded “chemo
brain” from Doc’s, Nurse’s and patients.
Apparently chemo brain is the result of all the chemicals you’re
subjected to which affect how you think, your memory, judgement, etc... As I’ve
learned along the way, and it’s not always a good thing, but I don’t often
experience what others do, but in this case I’m happy to report my brain
appears to be fog free.
During a visit with the oncologist a friend
accompanying me said “hey doc, she doesn’t have chemo brain, if anything she’s
sharper than before, but I’m worried about myself, I can’t remember anything
these days!”
The Bad: I had a dream where I’m in a room filled with women,
packed in like standing sardines, shoulders touching me I scan the room. The woman next to me has short blond hair,
kind of wiggish looking but not, and I notice all the women have the same
length of hair, not style, just length. I ask her why and she says “didn’t they tell you;
your hair will never grow past this point”.
I felt like I was a character in a Stephen King novel, and that’s not a
good feeling for those of you not familiar with his work.
In real life, most that dish out the treatments
have never been on the receiving end, you can tell this by how they explain
what will happen; those who do know firsthand what to expect are guarded with
their words.
I’m confident my hair will grow back, not so
confident though on what the future holds as a result of what’s gone on this
past year... as in what will happen because of what they don’t know, and what
they don’t share...
The What the ???: I made an appointment
with my Family Physician, in theory I did this to get back on track with
life. Once I arrived though I realized
how out of touch I had become, I’d forgotten there are things to be done
outside of Cancer Land, and found myself at a loss for words, not knowing where
to start, and forgetting who I was before this all happened. The kid tearing
across the room looking anything BUT sick had “thrush” whatever the heck that
is, the woman to my left was getting her annual physical, and the man who had
just finished his appointment announced cheerfully to his wife that he’s
expected to live to be 100...
The waiting room was filled with non-cancer
patients and for the first time in a while I felt like an outsider because I
wasn’t surrounded by people like me.
Lessons Learned: My body is starting to heal;
there is no pill though to erase the emotional scars of this past year.
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