Toxic

Toxic

Today is the first day of chemotherapy treatment.  I woke up this morning humming Britney Spears 'Toxic.'  Very funny, God.  It's nice to know the Big Guy has a great sense of humor, AND enjoys Britney Spears.  

It wasn't all comedy this morning.  A little update first - yesterday I had a temporary 'port' placed.  This device is placed just under my left clavicle bone, with tubes that connect directly into my veins.  The goal of this device is to have instant, direct access to my veins without having to go through my arm every time.  It is a much more comfortable and safe way to deliver chemo and whatever other drugs they want to give me.  We planned on this procedure taking the morning yesterday, long story short, it didn't. It was a very long -mentally, emotionally, and physically- day.  We got back to the hotel at 7:00pm.

I travel by wheelchair for any distance greater than walking across the room.  When I do walk across the room, it is with crutches.  Before we left the hospital last night, they gave me a backpack with IV fluids in it and hooked me up for overnight hydration before my big chemo day today.  
While absentmindedly humming 'Toxic,' my extraordinary husband pushed me through the streets of NYC to my favorite breakfast place, Le Pain Quotidien - YUM!  Once there, and fully um....hydrated, I had to go potty.  On my long journey to the back of the restaurant, my crutches pushing against yesterday's surgical site, new backpack and accompanying tubes looping out under my shirt, and some interested stares from morning diners, I cried.  

I came back to our table and sat down and cried more.  Our poor waitress!  I cried because things are getting harder.  Just this silly walk to the back of the restaurant was painful and tedious.  It was a moment of realization that this, and many other small tasks have gotten hard to do.  The 'cried-some-more' part was that in a few hours I was due to receive not one, but two chemo treatments.  This was not the end of things getting harder.  It was the beginning of it.

My legit Belgian Waffle, small bowl of latte, and my favorite person sitting across from me, made things better. We left Le Pain with a 'Let's Go Kick Cancer's Ass" refrain, and felt better for it.  Toxic started humming in head again.  

This particular cancer gets not one, but three chemotherapy treatments over about eight months to evict it.  I have completed the first treatment Doxirubicin about 30 minutes ago.  The second, Cisplatin is infusing now, along with some other meds to combat the negative effects of the chemo.  So, I am toxic.  The good thing is that I (through these mac-daddy meds) am toxic to the cancer.  The cancer will go away, and I will not.  I am stronger than the cancer.