One Month Post Chemo

So, while my nails and hair are growing back, I’m finding that chemo is still affecting me in other ways.

First, there’s the chemopause. I’m still in it. Today is cd84. I haven’t temped since before Labor Day because it was so frustrating to see temps flucuate every day. I hope my ovary wakes up soon.

The other major way that chemo is still affecting me is my appetite. I barely eat, and when I do, I only nibble. Things sound good to me in theory and then when I sit down to eat whatever I’ve been dreaming about, I take a few bites and then push it around my plate. The only things I consistently eat is breakfast cereal, Nilla wafers, and Wheat Thins.

And I have lost my taste for several things I used to enjoy. There’s a BBQ ribs place here–Rib Cage–that has really good pulled pork sandwichess. Well, Tom suggested this morning that we take the boys to Rib Cage for lunch and my stomach turned at the thought. Why? Because Tom brought me a pulled pork sammich for lunch when I was having round #4 of chemo, and they put it on a piece of tin foil in the to go box, and all I could taste was the tin foil. Now I can’t get the thought of “but it’ll taste like tin foil” out of my head and I don’t want it anymore.

Same goes for Abner’s (a chicken tenders place). Tom never liked them, so if I wanted them I’d have to go by myself or with a girlfriend. Then I started going to the breast cancer support group, which offers lunch at the meetings. They bring in Abner’s. All summer long, I was thrilled to be having Abner’s regularly — sometimes they even gave me the leftover chicken tenders to bring home and I’d cut them up into salads, mmm mm! But then, just before my last round of chemo, I was having a bad-feeling day at the meeting, but tried to eat anyhow. After 20 minutes, I had to get up and leave the meeting to throw up my lunch. Now I can’t drive past Abner’s (and there’s two locations in town!) without feeling slightly ill at the thought of the smell of their dipping sauce.

The good news is (knock on wood) I haven’t had a single migraine since just before my last round of chemo. I still haven’t been able to take an Imitrex to test it out, see how it does with my migraines, because I haven’t had any since my migraine doctor appointment!

Ooh, and my skin is clearing up again. That’s also nice.