One Week Later

Officially one week after the first TCH infusion, and, all things considered, I am not feeling too badly.

For the first few days post, I had a lot of tingling in my fingers, a bit of a tremor, and even some difficulty... texting (we live in an age of digital communication!). Fortunately, this wore off over the weekend and I am back to my usual response times. I took the B complex vitamin as was recommended- no idea if this helped or not- but I do not really care, as I am feeling better overall.

I did also have some fatigue, bone pain, and muscle aches over the weekend, all much improved by Monday (5 days post-infusion and 4 days post-neulasta). The fatigue and bone pain are now almost entirely gone, and the myalgias are improved to the point that I am going to take myself to the gym this afternoon.

The major lingering symptom at this point is a really awful metallic taste in my mouth, which also causes most foods to taste like they are drowning in a sea black pepper. Normally I like black pepper, but this is a little much. I did try a sip of wine, which tasted a lot like Robitussin, so I think it will be a while before I turn to that again. Coffee on its own is tough, but chocolate tastes pretty normal, so I turned my usual non-fat latte into a mocha. The coffee mochas taste delicious!

When I was a resident, one of my co-residents had a baby, and, amazingly, through all of the overnight calls in the ICU and the other ugly things about residency, managed to exclusively breastfeed her baby for over a year. When I was a fellow, and facing all sorts of obstacles when it came to breastfeeding, I often thought of her, and repeated the mantra, "If she can do it, I can do it." I am trying to look at chemo the same way.

The weekend when I was first diagnosed, I paged my OB about my IUD, because I was so freaked out about "feeding the tumor." The OB who answered my call started the conversation by saying, "I had it, too. It is going to be a rough year, but you are going to get through this." She was the first of many to come out of the wood work (breast cancer is horrifyingly common) and tell me that I will make it through. And so, just as with breastfeeding, I think to myself: if she can do it, then I can, too.