The gift that keeps on giving...

It's been a while since I've had time to post anything. The last few weeks have been pretty busy, and blogging hasn't seemed as urgent since the official end of treatment. However, just because I'm done with treatment doesn't mean I'm able to resume normal life just yet. So I figured it would be helpful to fill you in on the reality of things, especially for those of you who are far away and haven't seen or spoken to me lately.

I was really surprised to find that a number of the chemo side effects didn't actually START until between the fifth and sixth (aka last) treatment, and some continued to get worse even after treatment ended. My best guess is that some of the cumulative effects finally built up to a critical level during the last treatments, and it might be for this reason that many treatment regimens stop after six. Perhaps that's the threshold where chemotherapy's toll on the body outweighs its cancer-fighting benefits.

The downward spiral started with the loss of my eyelashes and eyebrows. I knew that it was possibly/likely that they'd go, but, when it didn't happen after the first four treatments, I thought I might have escaped that fate. No such luck. By the end of treatment, I had about two lashes under each eye, and only slightly more above. I had almost no eyebrow hairs on one side and few enough to count (but I didn't actually want to know) on the other. I never really thought about how helpful eyebrows and eyelashes are until they were gone! Eyebrows do a great job of keeping sweat and shampoo from running into your eyes, and eyelashes really do help keep the dust out. Plus, having lashes fall out so quickly meant that I had one in my eye continuously, which was a real pain! Luckily, they are FINALLY starting to grow back now.

I had a tingling sensation under my fingernails and toenails after almost every treatment. However, that got worse as time went on. By the end of treatment, my nails (especially on my toes) were lifting off the nail beds at the ends. It felt like someone was jamming razor blades under my nails. The nails didn't actually come off entirely, as I've heard happens to some people, but they sure felt like they might. I even have blood trapped under one toenail, which seems to indicate that it lifted off enough to be bleeding under there...

My nails are super thin and bendy. Anytime I catch a nail on something, it bends backwards and hurts like hell! They're also quite yellow and have ridges like a Ruffles potato chip. Come to think of it, the eyelashes that remained were also quite wavy. It's almost like you can see when the treatments happened and slowed the growth and when growth resumed between/after treatments.

Chemotherapy causes super dry skin, but that has also been aggravated by dry, indoor climates. My skin has been so dry and thin that any firm pressure causes it to tear. So I've got constant paper cuts and scratches, especially on my hands.

My taste buds are getting slowly better, but I continue to have a bit of a dead mouth feeling. Some foods still don't taste like I know they should. I'm still attempting to eat a lot of spicy/spiced foods in order to taste something. I'm praying that my mouth starts to bounce back a little faster because I know I'm eating too much in the hope that I'll eventually taste it!

The treatments also cause menopausal symptoms because the chemotherapy drugs damage the ovaries. These are actually some of the most annoying continuing side effects. I have alternating hot flashes and cold sweats, and they seem to be totally random. So I'll be just sitting on a bus or something and break out into an intense sweat, but other times I can run to catch a bus and not sweat at all! So weird and SO annoying, especially in cold weather. I'm also more irritable and moody (a la PMS but worse), but some of that might be aggravated by the short, dark winter days.

During my last appointment with the oncologist, I asked about whether there was anything I could do to manage some of the menopause-like symptoms. She said that the medications often used are only really effective for about 30% of women. So her suggestion was to wait and see if the symptoms get better with time since it takes several months for the effects to reverse. It's going to be a long wait...

I'm also waiting for the "chemo brain" to improve. It's maddening not to be able to remember things that happened 15 minutes ago or to be able to access information in my head that I KNOW is there. For example, I had to take another Finnish course placement test on Monday, and it was terribly frustrating. There were so many words that I used to know well that I just could not recall. They were so familiar I could almost see them, but I couldn't actually grasp them. I know that these issues generally get worse with age, but I'm not ready to deal with them just yet since I'm not even 40!

The one area where I've actually seen improvement since the end of treatment is my hair. It's really thickened up a lot, especially in the last couple weeks. It is not much longer, but it is much fuller. You can't see my scalp any longer, which makes me feel like I look less like a cancer patient. I'm anxious for it to grow long enough to actually style and look hopefully more feminine, but I'm happy for the progress.

I'm planning to take things easy for the remainder of December and to enjoy the holidays and my vacation to California. After we return in January, I really hope to get life back on track in some kind of normal fashion. Even if things won't be truly back to normal, I'm at least going to focus on maintaining a routine and improving my health. I'm hoping to start an intensive Finnish course (hence the placement test) and join a gym. Hopefully, one baby step at a time, I'll get my life back.