50% through AC, 25% (?) through chemo!

Yesterday was a chemo day, and boy, I can't sugarcoat it, are those days rough. It's a weird thing, because the treatment itself, besides being prodded with an IV for three hours, is perfectly fine. Even the first few hours after, you feel pretty okay. But then, it just slowly creeps up on you, like a fog cloud all over your body. And then the exhaustion and nausea set in. Man, so much of cancer is just a wicked waiting game. I will say that sleeping through the day did me some good, and in general, my response was MUCH better than the first treatment, especially in terms of the heartburn, for which I prophylactically took some meds.

I had  a new nurse this treatment, who was a Soviet from Brooklyn like Grisha. She was nice, and good at her job, but I didn't like her as much as nurse #1, Asha.* With the chemo meds, they bring in a second nurse to double-check your identity as to make sure they're 100% giving the right doses to the right person, and Asha popped in for that role. I also saw her when I was walking out, and she gave me a big hug and congratulated me on treatment number 2 being done. Anyways this blog post is quickly turning into an homage to Asha, who really is the best. You're my girl, Asha! 

During treatment, Greg, Jon, and I stuck with the tradition of playing Sushi Go Party!** and then Jon and I played a round of Scrabble.*** I would like to point out that Jon laid down "Queer" (huzzah gay pride month!) and that I managed to fit in the word "Gentry," which, given my research interests, I was pretty proud of. Other than that, it was a pretty unremarkable game: 

During my treatment, brother Jon also made me laugh by trying to steal my chemo meds:

It's been great having Jon around, and we had a nice Sunday hanging with him and his fiancé Katie, who is also awesome and in town for work this week. Katie and Jon are consistently awesome at getting me great birthday and Christmas/Hanukkah gifts, and their cancer gifts were no exception. They handed me off a pair of AirPods that one of their famous friends gave them**** and also got me the pen I wanted to buy at the stationary store near their house in LA, before I checked its price tag. It has come in handy already, as I actually went to a meeting for my dissertation research on Saturday! I took notes with said fancy pen and also used a beautiful notebook they bought me for my birthday. As a side note, after months of heavy consulting and then a month of dealing with cancer shit, it was a great feeling to be back in the research game, albeit briefly. 

Right after treatment, we popped into a great plant store right next to MSKCC and picked up some cute things, including one of those full, beautiful rosemary plants right in the foreground of the photo on the right: 

The good news is, today is much better! I slept in, headed to Atlantic Avenue to get my white blood cell shot, ate some lunch that my mama prepped for Jon and I, and then settled into some light work (responding to emails, reading news articles, etc... even blogging fits under my "light work" umbrella!) If last treatment was any indication, I am more tired than usual, and my energy levels sort of crash in the evenings. So similar to that fog cloud that creeped up on me yesterday, I'm just waiting for the tiredness to set in. I also have this irrational fear that because my side effects aren't even worse, that the treatment isn't working. I know this is irrational because I looked it up, and there does not appear to be a correlation between degree of side effects and the success of chemotherapy.*****

Anyways, with yesterday over, I am officially 50% done with my AC treatment, which is apparently the worse of the two phases of meds I'll take be taking throughout chemo! And provided I keep with an 8 treatment schedule, I'm officially 25% through ALL chemo treatment. As Anna Laura put it in terms that resonated hard with me, that's one semester through a master's program, done 😎. Onward! 

* I hope the MSKCC nurses at Atlantic Ave don't take a random interest in searching for patient's treatment blogs in their spare time.  

** For the record, I won. 

***For the record, Jon won. BUT I blame it on his use of the word "vatted" being counted and my use of the word "frum" not being counted. Seriously? In NYC, yiddish words should automatically be in the Scrabble repertoire. 

****Hint: this person is very funny and their last name rhymes with Pee. 

*****I will say that one major side benefit that I did not anticipate from learning statistics is being able to read medical studies and generally understand them. R- and p-values, regression results, I got you!