Things I Hate...

Well, I am potentially halfway done with chemotherapy as of today. I am getting a CT scan on December 23rd, and depending on those results Dr Hodson will decide to do a total of 6 or 8 cycles. If she goes with the 6 cycles, then today was the halfway point, yay (6 treatments in, 6 to go!).

At this point in the treatment, I feel entitled to do some complaining, so I have compiled a list of things I hate. For a cheerier update, I'm going to post a note on Facebook, so if you don't feel like reading my whining, check there.

Things I Hate:
1. Dexamethasone. I hate the way it makes me feel weak and dizzy and I hate the after taste in my mouth and how it makes me gain weight and I hate how it contributes to my...
2. ...inability to sleep. Can't fall asleep, and can't stay asleep. Which doesn't help the...
3. ...fatigue. Emma (aka emaclrkschnfdt) can attest to the fact that I am no stranger to sleep deprivation.... (as Laura put it once, "give up, it's hopeless!"), but this is fatigue on a level that sleep can't really significantly help. Bone deep fatigue that can hit any time, anywhere. Speaking of bones....
4. ...Neulasta shots and the associated bone pain. I know that the Neulasta helps me keep a normal level of white blood cells (I was dangerously neutropenic after the first treatment), but damn, it makes my back hurt for four or five days. And it gives me back spasms.
5. I hate that I can smell the chemo on me for days and days afterwards. It makes me feel sick.
6. Saline flushes. It's just salt water that they use to flush out the port before and after each drug is administered, but it tastes GROSS (after it's injected, I can taste it in my mouth immediatly). Strangely, it doesn't taste salty, it tastes chemically and metallic. Until this week, I just thought it was kind of gross, but today I had a really bad reaction and nearly threw up. How pathetic would it be if the only drug in this whole process that make me puke was the freaking salt water???
7. My port. I have a love/hate relationship with the thing. Three of the chemo drugs I"m on are so toxic that they can't be administered through anything but a port, and the port makes it so the nurses don't have to search for a vein, but today they couldn't get the port accessed right because it had turned itself on its side in my chest. It took them six needles to get it accessed.
8. In this vein (har har), I also hate having the nurses search for veins in my arms. It took them four tries yesterday. Apparently I have hard-to-find veins.
9. I hate ABVD. I hate how it makes my heart race (weirdest feeling ever), and I hate how I can smell it everywhere, and I hate the fevers and the dizziness and the disorientation and the lack of ability to focus and the sleeplessness and the way it affects my taste buds and my appetite and my hair...
10. ...which is not falling out as quickly as I would like. It fell out very very very very quickly while it was still shoulder-length, but as soon as I buzzed it down it's coming out slowly. I'd like for it to be just GONE, already.
11. Finally, I am sick of the line, "If you're going to have a cancer, Hodgkins is the one to have!" i know that most people with cancer have worse experiences than me, and I know that I have a cancer with a roughly 84% cure rate, but that's still not a line I want to hear. "If you're going to get crushed by a car, you might as well get crushed by a BMW." "If you're going to get hit in the head by a large falling object, meteorites are the way to go because they're awesome!" Doesn't work that way, people.


OK, I'm done complaining. I just felt entitled, as I've tried to keep the complaining to a minimum before today.