Delayed Chemo Effects

I had a massive amount of chemotherapy in a short amount of time. Five infusions of cytoxan coursed through my veins via my PICC line in as many days. Some people on my floor lost their hair or exhibited other expected side effects of chemotherapy. My appetite disappeared, and that's about it for what I felt prior to the stem cell re-infusion. Even in the initial weeks after I left, I didn't display the usual outwardly visible effects like hair loss. The last two weeks, though, have been a different story.

After my first round of chemotherapy, a month before the hospitalization, I saw that my hair had begun to fall out. And onto my pillow. Because I knew that I had a lot more where that came from, with regard to the chemo regiment, I shaved my head prior to my admission. My hair stopped falling out noticeably while I was in the hospital, though.

Before I knew it, my stay ended. I still had much of my closely cropped hair. Recently, however, I've noticed that my hair--on my head and in more "intimate" areas--has started to fall out prodigiously. It's probably good that I shaved my head. It definitely has minimized the squeamishness that I'm sure I'd feel as I looked at my hairy pillow.

Since college, I haven't showered frequently. When I was in college, of course, I started to miss days here and there. Then, I strung along several days. When I was first diagnosed, then, I took it as an excuse not to go through the hassle of bathing. Soon, I cut back considerably, and now back-to-back shower days don't happen. It's too arduous to position the chair that I now use like a feeble old person, and then to fidget with the tap controls until the water is a reasonable temperature. Now, because I have no hair, I find that I don't have to shower ever. I don't smell, and this is both a blessing and a curse. It's nice not to have b.o., but showering is more of a chore than ever before. When the chemo ended, and I was discharged, I was relieved to shower. Since then, though, I've noticed that I emerge from the bathroom with less and less hair. I'm not totally hairless, but I can easily feel my scalp with my fingertips.

Then I have to check my eyes, because generally an eyelash or two has fallen beneath a lid. For the most part, I have my eyebrows (thankfully--that's a hallmark of chemo, and one of the ways in which to discern between chemotherapy and general baldness). Every so often, though, I peel back an eyelid and see a preternaturally long bit of hair there. This is a piece of brow, obviously. While I scoop that out, I make sure to check for other strands of hair. Most likely, this is an eyelash. I've always had long eyelashes, not unlike Dumbo, so I'm used to doing this, but never before has removal of one from underneath my lid been so certain. There's bound to be at least one.

At first, the nausea was manageable. It took a few days--after the re-infusion, really--for the telltale feeling of unease to come up (pardon the pun). When it did, I didn't eat anything for a week. This was normal, I was told. Nevertheless, it was unsettling that, for a week, I ate nothing but Ensure &/or Boost. I felt like Kanye West, without the facial disfigurement. Eventually, my doctor prescribed Marinol--a synthetic form of THC. Or medical, pharmaceutical marijuana. It sucked, and only made me sleepy, a reaction that my friend Sophie warned me about but which I shrugged off more as an extension of her light-weight-ness. Not so, it turned out. Marinol erases any psychoactive or psychotropic side of marijuana, aka the fun of it, and replaces it with Ambien. Or, in my case, Restoril (Ambien does nothing for me). Now, my nausea comes and goes. It's impossible to predict when I'll have that feeling, so I need something close to counter its effects.

What's more troubling is that there seems to be nothing to assuage the dizziness and exhaustion I feel after being upright for an extended amount of time. How can the big bad drug companies not have something that will quell this? I've mentioned this feeling several times to my doctors and my physical therapists, and still they have no response. A simple "Whatreyougonnado?" would suffice, but they seem to dismiss it like they didn't hear me. When I lie down, it goes away. Sitting up for more than half an hour causes it to increase exponentially, it seems.

Hey, Big Pharma--mach schnell! I know you're good for nothing altruistic, for the most part, but make something that will allow me to sit in a chair for more than an hour. You've done the Viagra thing, now do something less comical. Forget about curing cancer and everything else that should have been done already, and just let me sit upright.

R