Tracie Fights Back

My damned nemesis chemotherapy just won’t cut me a break. One would think that for old-times’ sake it would have eased up in this the eighth and (I hope) final round. We have been hanging out, after all, since May.

Instead, it’s beating up my insides like it’s alive in there. All night long my stomach and esophagus burned and pounded as if football linebackers had taken up residence. I whimpered and prayed for ice to cool my insdes, too weak to actually get up and walk downstairs to get it myself.

My hands and fingers ache from neuropathy so badly just typing this causes me to wince, when I can control my fingers at all. Too many typos to count. It’s nerve-related and feels like a painful electrical charge is running through my hands. It’s supposed to be a temporary side effect of chemo, but “temporary” can last longer than a year. We’ll see.

So I got up around 4 a.m. and tried to find answers. How long does it take to recover from chemotherapy? When will I feel strong? When will the pain leave? When will my organs, suffering from the poison infused to kill my cancer cells, start to repair themselves? No one knows for sure.

My sincere hope is that none of you ever have to know what it feels like to be poisoned to the brink of death. That’s why I write here when I can and read incessantly so I can try to figure out my best path for complete remission in the future.

I have nothing profound to say today, I just wanted to give you an update on how I’m doing.

Making sense of it is for a day when I actually can think straight.

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