My advent calendar of poison

I start chemo in about 50 minutes. I ate a bowl of cereal over an hour ago, took my zofran to reduce my nausea, then I start on what looks like the most serious advent calendar I've ever seen that has strict instructions on how only the patient should handle the meds because, y'know, it's like legit poison and stuff. Hope you feel better!

Thinking about how much my life has changed since early March is how most of you probably felt last March with the coronavirus pandemic and masks and social distancing and an unknown disease. I will say that I have a great envy for those who can now try to step back into normality, take off their masks, start travelling, and resume their lives after a pretty crappy year for a lot of people around the world. I feel like the eternal footman stepped in front of me as I was taking off my mask and said "I'm sorry, but this is not the way you're going. There is another path for you." 

I don't intend to complain or moan on this blog - my point is to share with people what's going on in my life and to try to share with people where I'm at emotionally. I've never been terribly good at it, especially with emotions that aren't necessarily happy or good, but now that the clock is ticking it's probably time to start trying.

I think I've told everyone that's sat still next to me for more than 45 seconds that I'm really nervous about chemotherapy. Not that I think it's a bad idea! I think that the temodar chemotherapy treatment looks to be the best approach to fight my cancer with the most livable suite of side-effects. I've listened to my doctors, done my research, and am intellectually convinced that this is the best thing to do right now.

My emotional side remembers the comforting words that "with radiation you should feel some fatigue, maybe some nausea, but otherwise it's pretty ok" and how incredibly wrong those words turned out to be. I don't blame my doctor for not knowing that my body would throw a open and violent revolt against radiation that would land me in the hospital for days with the worst pain I've yet experienced. (And hope and pray never to feel again.) What strikes the fear in me is how similar these comforting words are with radiation and chemotherapy and that warps my faith in how things will go. I recognize that these are totally different medical procedures and different doctors and bad things don't happen all the time, but I'm still emotionally quite raw from how painful radiation was and my lizard brain is screaming "GET OUT OF HERE!" 

I am more than a lizard. I am a human. I will do something that terrifies me because science and evidence shows that it is the best decision. I will suffer pain in the short term in hopes that I can have a better and happier long term.

I hope that this poison/medicine is violent to my copious tumors but gentle with me. If all goes well, I should be punching my chemotherapy advent calendar every day for a year and being able to live a life that is some approximation of what I had before.

"What happens if that all goes well and I'm doing great after a year?" I asked my doc. 

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."