On a normal day, in my normal life, the first thing that I would be doing right now is to apologize for not writing, when I said that I would be writing every day. In reading experiences from other people that have gone through HSCT, I was under the impression that the first two weeks were a breeze.

OK, not sure what genetic lottery those folks won, but clearly, I did not! I found the picture above and thought to myself ‘that is a scary looking doll and it will be funny to use and say that I feel like that doll looks.’ Well, now that I am in ‘real world HSCT,’ I’ll just say that I WOULD PAY BIG MONEY TO FEEL THE WAY THIS DOLL LOOKS! OMG, seriously, I feel like I ran 50 marathons back to back and on the last one, at the end, six or eight cars also ran me over before I crossed the finish line. I tend to exaggerate, but I am really not with this statement! So, what I’m trying to say, is be thankful that I am to the place where I can write anything at all! I appreciate your understanding.

Let me bring you up to speed, on Friday, June 3, I did my first round of chemo at 1:00 in the afternoon. Nurse Ana (BTW, she merit’s an entire post and will get one later, but just know that she is AMAZING!) told me that I absolutely have to drink electrolytes and water and I have to eat something before I go in. I spend most of my day drinking water. Gatorade has electrolytes and I think it is gross, but I drank it anyway. Water alone will not cut it. When she indicated that I would be ‘losing’ everything later and would need those electrolytes, I was in too much of an HSCT-Is-So-Awesome frame of mind that I didn’t think to say ‘what do you mean when you say lose everything?’

So, Day 1 went OK. My biggest complaint for Day 1 would have to be hot flashes that were off of the chart! Seriously, Dick and Ana were running around in sweatshirts. At that moment, I still cared about possibly traumatizing young people (Ana is 28), so I did leave my clothes on. I was so hot that I really just wanted to strip everything off and lie on the cold floor.

As you know, if there is a Day 1 then there must be a Day 2. Day 2 started at 8:00am the very next day. While I had continued to drink electrolytes, I really should have set my alarm around 6:00am just so I could sit around and drink some fluids and eat some protein. Lesson learned! Up until this particular day in my life, I thought of myself as someone who has a pretty high tolerance for many things. I pride myself on being someone who Pushes Through. Turns out, that is not the case. Fun Fact – I did not know that it was physically possible to dry heave for 50 hours straight. Turns out, it is absolutely doable! Now, I can share with you the things about my wonderful husband who literally had to place me on the shower seat and bathe me, the fact that my dreams were a new level of vivid, that I fluctuated between burning up and freezing, and that my talks with God consisted of me explaining that I was ready to meet Him RIGHT NOW, to in my next hazy thought, explaining that I probably would like to stay on this planet a bit longer and if He could please disregard my last request, then I would be most appreciative. Instead, I just need to tell you that during all of this, Ana informed me that what I am doing is actually Baby Chemo! Meaning it is not as strong as the chemo a cancer patient will have. I mean, she used the word baby! So, what I really need to do is give the biggest shout out to all of the true warriors that have navigated or are navigating cancer and, apparently, playing with the Big Boys! There are not even words that I can use to explain the level of respect that I have for you!

The good news is that today, four days later, I am finally having some clear thoughts, my dreams last night were more in line with my typical anxiety dreams (yep, have had those most of my life!), the night sweats were about half what they were, but still not fun, and this morning I bathed myself. I feel that I have turned the corner…just in time to start the process again on Monday!

In the middle of all of this, the group did have a Head Shaving Party. I did participate and I am bald now. My plan is to write about that today. It does seem that I have more energy in the morning and need to spend the afternoon sleeping, so I make no promises.