By the time my esophageal cancer was diagnosed, it had advanced to a T3 or T4 cancer, involving the lymphs as well. My treatment required six weeks of radiation and six chemo therapies. Dr. Oxford encouraged me. “You’ll be fine. You can beat this. You were in good physical shape when you were diagnosed” I, in turn, assured my employer I’d return to work in early to mid-April. Only one of those statements was right.
Meanwhile, I was lost without work. I puttered around, busying myself by cooking, doing laundry, painting a bedroom. I slept more and more and ran mystery fevers during the day.
My first chemo treatment was so uneventful that I wondered what all the hoopla was about. You sit with an IV in the top of your wrist for a few hours. You can read, watch tv, sleep, play cards with family. At one treatment my daughter and I shared a huge fruit salad with Boursin cheese and crackers. Chemo was followed by a steroid drip that left me believing I could “whip the known world.” I returned home and instead whipped up a homemade Mexican dinner for my husband and daughter, and then proceeded to annoy both of them by chattering endlessly about nothing, in a somewhat frantic tone of voice. We were awhile figuring out that the steroids were causing that.
The day after chemo was equally good, except for some fatigue and rising fever, caused by the ethyol. On the third to fourth day, chemo side effects introduced themselves. They married with the Ethyol to generate chills, fever, muscle weakness, wracking coughs, dry heaves, intermittent deep sleep, and loss of appetite. But none of the commode hugging that is legend with chemo.
Not until three or four days after the second treatment did I really begin to feel the effects of chemo. I moved across the floor like a tortoise, using a cane to keep down the agitation to my peg tube site. It was already terribly inflamed by the steady coughing, and the backwash of Jevity canned food seemed to agitate the misery. It was hard to shower. Washing my hair meant watching it swirl down the drain in clumps.
Because this is supposed to an optimistic blog, I’m skipping over any more details about chemo and radiation side effects. Suffice it to say, whatever you’ve heard or seen, square it… if your doctors are serious about curing you. Mercifully your irradiated brain won’t remember much a year later. I’d been warned that I was going through a level of hell Dante had failed to describe on his classic tour. They weren’t kidding.
One of many things I carried away from this experience is a massive respect for anyone who takes daily radiation, along with chemo therapy, and still works full-time. I could not have done it. I could barely drive a car to the grocery store. And the outcome to all this misery was uncertain from that point on the hill.
