Round 4 of my Adriamycin-Cytoxan (AC) regimen was particularly difficult. I felt toxic and polluted. My headache raged on, my body dehydrated quickly from my inability to take anything by mouth due to the intense nausea and seasick feeling I was experiencing. I didn't eat and lost 8 pounds in a week. I started to get feelings of urgency, pain and frequency with urination which could only mean one thing: a pending urinary tract infection. I'll save you the gory details of bowel movements but the constipation worsened and the frank red appearance of the product was worrisome. My heart rate was elevated. I was hopelessly exhausted and for the first time ever, I thought that I might not survive 3 more months of treatment. I started to lose faith. When my light starts to flicker, I log on to my computer. Primarily for diversion but also in hopes of a surprise email or FB message that might help. Again, my friends came through with well wishes and inspirational messages. I was ashamed for my feelings of doubt. I would get through this and the reason I felt so sick is because the medicine was killing cells effectively, which meant that it was eradicating my body of cancer cells. Self talk changed from "not another day" to "Man up girl cuz this is what we're here for!"
Round 4 of the AC was to be my last round of the hideous red syrup they pushed into my veins on a bi-weekly basis. The Adriamycin was bad enough, but followed by a chaser of Cytoxan was adding insult to injury. I immediately felt inebriated. I was unsteady, off balance, and my brain was swimming in fog. I couldn't think straight. I was repulsed by food.
People ask me "What's it like?" and I search for analogies that might paint the picture but to no avail. The best I can come up with is you feel drunk (really drunk, like sleep-in-your-party-clothes drunk in the back seat of your car), and pregnant at 18,000 feet of altitude. Not many people have either been pregnant or at 18,000 feet so I have to come up with something else. Seasick is close. Better yet, on a boat in 60-foot seas, seasick, and drinking Jagermeister. Are you shuddering yet? It's like that. I felt like a toxic waste dump. Despite the anti-nausea meds, the steroids, the force-feeding of soup, cheese and garlic stuffed olives, I was miserable. There was nothing but time and sleep that could save me and I swore that the effects were permanent.
I began to dread the rest of my treatment. The next regimen includes Taxol and Herceptin. Taxol is a thick, oil-like substance that looks like it would take the paint off of your car. Nurses double glove to mix the stuff. It's hideous. Herceptin is a hormonal adjuvant with no side effects. It's not chemo but they give it after the Adriamycin because both drugs are detrimental to the heart. I had to have a diagnostic test called MUGA scan between the two to make sure my heart muscle was not damaged. I got good news that my heart is just fine. Anyway, I began to worry about the Taxol because I get it every week for 12 weeks. There is no recovery week in-between and I was worried about side effects and the cumulative effect without time in between to recover. In essence, I was scared.
Three days ago, I got my first dose of Taxol and Herceptin. Because Taxol has a potential side effect of hypersensitivity, they premedicate you with Steroids, Benadryl and Pepcid. Why Pepcid? Because aside from being great for heartburn, it has an antihistamine effect that stymies allergic reactions. Kinda cool eh? What's not cool is as I was sitting there, I got the paradoxical reaction of restlessness that is associated with Benadryl . It's a strange feeling much like restless leg syndrome, only all over. You get really fidgety and want to jump out of your skin. My nurse was proactive and helpful with offers of more meds to sedate me, but I refused. I felt a greater need to deal with my situation rather than impair my mental status and turn me into a psychotic nightmare. Healthcare can be a slippery slope. Luckily, it resolved after a half of an hour, but for awhile, I was having to focus on staying calm and keeping myself from throwing a very, public fit. Marek had that worried, helpless look on his face. It's hard to assure your husband that you are going to be fine when you are tweaking on the inside.
This did not set a very reassuring stage for chemo. I was nervous. Being nervous is different for me now. It used to be I got butterflies or shaky but now, nervous is more manifested in my ability to communicate. I am short, irritable, and generally unpleasant. Conversation is an annoyance. My new mission is to find ways to process this so I am not so crotchety.
Anyway, my nurse began infusing the Taxol. In the first fifteen minutes, I anticipated that feeling of inebriation or some sort of toxic feeling but there wasn't any. After a half of an hour, I began to get sleepy, probably from the Benadryl. I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up, my Taxol was done. I was fine and there was no toxic waste dump feeling. The Herceptin was the same and I was so elated, I could hardly stand it. I cried on the way home. I was so consumed with relief that this regimen would not take me down week to week and that I might actually make it with some semblance of a life outside of my cancer treatment. It was also the first time I admitted to myself that the AC regimen was brutal and hard and awful. I wanted to be strong and positive throughout the treatment and I was, but when it was over, I allowed myself a moment of tears. A moment that validated that it was hard, but that I had made it. And with the Taxol being far less toxic, the increase in my quality of life brought tears of gratitude.
We were silent most of the way home. Marek was faced with the reality that I had cancer, and I had just experienced the epiphane that I was going to survive it. Conversation was difficult, so we didn't speak. I don't think we had to. We've moved into phase II. We are a seasoned cancer family now.
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