Fending off the negative 11/6/2009

I try every week to go to the gym at least 4 times. I can't go one day of the week because I have to go for a blood test and office visit that day. This past Monday, I decided to show up with my head "au naturel"--aka bald. I sweat way too much to bother wearing a scarf. Because I go to the gym at about the same time every day, I usually see the same people, and we know each other just enough to smile and wave at each other, or say "Hi". Monday was no exception, but my bristly head did cause a few to stop me and ask what was up. "No", I told them, "this is definitely NOT a fashion statement." And I then confirmed what they had guessed was the reason for my bald head. And then I was confronted with the very thing that I really have wanted to avoid--negative thinking. The negativity isn't meant to be hurtful or mean, but rather helpful, I'm sure.

It seems that everyone knows someone who has had cancer of some type, and I well know that everyone's story and experience of it is unique. But I really don't want to be told, as I was by one of my burly gym confederates, that by chemo #4, I would probably be so tired that I'd only be able to work half days. And it doesn't help me to be advised that I might (like one woman's mother) have "chemo brain" after treatment was done, a condition that diminished her mother's memory. (It came back, I was reassured, after her mother engaged in some complex computer games.)

Believe me, I am not a stupid person, and I have read all the potential side effects and outcomes of my cancer and its treatment. The best thing anyone could say to me would be "Well, you're tough, and I know you're going to beat it!" I believe that people create their own reality, and you best create positive outcomes with positive thinking.

It seems that the pattern of chemo #1 has repeated itself in #2. It takes about a week to get most of the really bad poison out of my system, then I start feeling more like myself. As my red blood cell count has declined (I keep a spreadsheet of my blood numbers on a weekly basis.), I can see that fatigue comes on earlier. I do sag at about 3 in the afternoon.

I do have to be careful about infection though. I developed a staph infection from a paper cut. But I had gone to my PCP when I saw that it was infected, and she drained it and gave me an antibiotic. No harm, no foul.

All in all, life is good.