The clinic stole some of my blood yesterday. Bloodwork is always tiring since you have to wait a while but it takes almost no time to actually get the samples, then you have to sit around waiting and twiddling your thumbs for an hour until your next appointment. They've removed all of the major sitting areas in the facility to discourage people from hanging around because of muh COVID, so you end up having to search around a bit for some place to sit down. Bit of a pain when standing too long makes you cough non-stop.
I did some push-ups and wasn't able to stop coughing since, though I did slow it down. Happened after I sat down following the sets. I can only describe the sensation as something "peeling" off the front of the inside of my chest and falling to the side a little after it was free, and I started getting pains and coughing. The chest compression probably wasn't a good idea with a chest tumor, nevermind one the doctor likes to say is "a pretty good size" whenever you interact. Since this cough is further down than the one my neck tendon-compressing one(s) cause, I figured it sorta fell over onto my lower esophagus and started agitating it. Without describing too much to the onc to see what he would say about it with almost no context, he pretty much verified what I'd figured happened. I just have to be careful how I hold myself and not miss any pain killer dosages and I can manage it okay.
My first round of chemical hell is set for some time on Tuesday, the 5th of this month. It was originally going to be Monday, but the pharmacy doesn't have the fancy $100+ anti-puke pills on-hand and won't until sometime on that day, and I need to take them before they start pumping me full of horrific bullshit. I'm going to fast through treatment periods, always feel better when I restrict what I eat for a while. The doc said he's fine with it since I'm used to doing it anyway. His nurse was really against the idea because of the oral dexamethasone dosing, but it's the doctor I'm supposed to listen to. I don't think she realizes that you CAN eat on a fast. I've collected more stories than I can count from patients, and of the ones that fasted ALL of them had positive things to say about their results with the exception of two people. One tended to feel nauseous when hungry even normally, and one was a food-addict that was miserable when he couldn't eat when he wanted.
Today is the last day I can eat somewhat-normally. Starting Saturday, I'm going to go back to heavily-restricting my calories, something I was doing last week anyway. That should help me feel better in general, to start. After that, water/electrolytes only. If I have to eat, it will be less than half of my recommended daily intake. No glucose, and very little protein (if any) for shit to bind to so I can speed up my renal functions a bit to flush the caustic chemicals out of me faster. Thursday I can ease myself off the fast with some bone broth to get my digestive functions going again and get some important stuff back in me. Coconut water to reduce the impact of the nadir, hopefully. I fucking hate the shit, but it's great for boosting neutrophil counts.
Beyond that, it'll just be keeping myself meticulously clean, maintaining my body pH and oral health, and trying out that weird, smelly black radish shampoo that roomie's herbalist friend wanted me to use. She's ancient and worked with a lot of chemo patients, and she insists that it helps hair root cells stay alive during the chemical attack. Not perfect, but gives them a fighting chance. Given the high anti-oxidant properties of black radish and its connection with hair growth, she's probably onto something. If I remember how to log into this thing, I'll try to report results.
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