i'm a week and a bit past chemo #3, so, starting to feel slightly human again. what we know is that the numbers continue down, which is great, but i'm still struggling with the gastroparesis, which is so frustrating at this point. best guess is that the tumor slowest to shrink is sitting at the top of my stomach. so even though i feel better in many ways, being able to eat a normal meal is not one of them.
it obviously presents huge challenges for gaining all the weight back, but i'm still eating (mostly drinking smoothies). i have scans scheduled for about 10 days from now to see what's what. depending on the location of the remaining cancer, my oncologist will consider adding one of a handful of different agents to the chemo, to help speed things up.
while i'm happy at the prospect of speeding things up, i'm less so thinking about adjusting to more side effects, and to the possibility that even tho the combo is designed to work better, it just might not. i suppose i'm at the point of trusting virtually nothing -- for all i know, the scans will somehow show more progression despite the lowering numbers. after a while, nothing really surprises you.
i'm taking my thinking day by day because thinking beyond that gets me to a bad place, but i have to be honest: my spirit feels broken. not like omg there's no hope --- but, i guess, what exactly am i hoping for? this isn't a curative measure. sure, it could get me to a place where, if i could stay stable for a month or so, i might be able to join another clinical trial or something. but i've had too many frankly shitty experiences to get actually truly hopeful.
i don't want to be this person, i really don't. i'll try not to dwell on it too much. but right now, where it's hard to do virtually anything i enjoy, where i'm looking at 3 more chemo sessions of feeling like absolute rot for 10 days or more, it's just. hard. to stay hopeful. yes, there are lots of interesting things going on in terms of research. but i don't have the same forward-looking energy reading about them. they seem, well, not for me. maybe i've just felt too poorly for too long.
my point is not to have this pity party of a post, tho, excuse me. it's really to make an update. i'll keep doing that, esp. after scans--- tho if the scan is bad, it'll take me longer to write, of course-- and keep the stuff about my feelings to a minimum. and of course if i should wake up one day and miraculously crave a full stack of buttermilk pancakes, i'll let you know that too!
more later, my friends.
