On the Road to Normal

I'm writing. And that's a good thing. 24 hours ago, this would have been too much effort. But now, the sheer fact that I can string a coherent (you be the judge) sentence together is a good sign that the fog is lifting and I'm on the road to normal. But I have to admit that it's been a little tougher than I thought it would be.

Not the chemo. That was actually easy. Thursday was a long day but I had plenty of emails, texts and such to occupy me. Friday was a short day and I wasn't feeling any effects yet. Saturday morning was a normal day at the soccer fields, but by about 3 pm, I was starting to feel wiped. Sunday -- three days from the first day of chemo -- was probably the worst day.  

The anti-nausea pills do a good job of controlling that side effect, but there's little to be done for the general fog that surrounds you. It's hard to describe except in cliches and metaphors but it feels like you're perceiving the world through dirty glasses - nothing is sharply in focus. 

Somewhere around 3 or 4 pm on Monday  afternoon, I could feel things starting to improve a bit and although I definitely felt a bit fatigued, I felt sharper and able to function. So much that I thought I'd head into the office on Tuesday. The commute made for a tough morning. By this evening I rebounded again, but you get the idea -- it's been an up and down few days and although I'm feeling optimistic that the worst of the side effects are behind me, I'm taking it a bit more cautiously and will try to work at home tomorrow for as much as my energy allows.

I'll post more thoughts, hopefully later in the week. For now, I can only say that this is a learning experience. My first instinct is always to fight through something -- maybe it's the runner in me (if I stopped running every time I had an ache and pain, I'd never finish a race) -- but with chemo -- with  5 more cycles of this -- I need to learn the lay of the land, and to know when to take it easy. It is a marathon, after all, not a sprint.