We're At War

There is a war going on in my body right now, and I can feel it. Every muscle and organ in my body is trying desperately to get rid of the Adriamycin and Cytoxan, and every one of the anti-nausea drugs I was given is preventing them from doing so.

I know the big picture is that the chemo drugs are fighting the cancer cells and will win, but for now, this mini-war between the chemo drugs and the anti-nausea drugs is the one I feel. And it has given me a full understanding of the side effect of fatigue.

Paul and I talked beforehand that we knew about fatigue from our sleepless nights and full days during the months after Maggie and Reese were each born. But I now realize that we were dealing with being tired and I can explain the difference. When you're tired, you feel as if you could curl up in a ball on the floor anywhere at any time and be immediately asleep. Now that I'm fatigued, the effort of raising my hand to my forehead to brush away a stray hair is exhausting and takes every bit of my energy. Getting out of bed requires unprecedented effort to get my hand to move the covers off my body, slowly place my feet on the floor, and don't even mention the marathon effort to stand and walk.

Now, research shows that the best way to control this fatigue (to some extent) is to get up and exercise. I guess I kind of felt that when I went downstairs for family dinner (which is still in my tummy, thank you drugs) because after that little movement, I could then move more for about an hour. I know some of you would then, based on that observation and the research, spend all day tomorrow at the gym. For me, nope. I am giving myself the morning to rest (thanks for taking the kids, Devorah) and then I'll get the kids after lunch and try out the Mommy-on-chemo-drugs job. If I continue to feel like I did after dinner, I can do this. And hopefully, I'll keep improving over the weekend. (Optimism, optimism...)

For now, I'm trying to avoid typing words with letters in them that require stretching out my fingers, cause the fatigue is getting in the way (darn that q in require...and I just did it two more times).

Okay, I'm out of breath from sitting and typing. Later!