for every up there is a down

...or perhaps better, for every in there is an out. Literally.

I swear: if it's not one thing with this cancer stuff, it's another. Today I spent most of the day with my head hanging over the toilet, dry-heaving because I'd already thrown up everything else left in my stomach. I'd been feeling pretty good again--almost normal!--when I started this next round of therapy. I'm in for a double dose of chemo for five straight days, followed by a month off again, for a total of three cycles. And this round of therapy bites. I'd had no nausea or noticeable side-effects with my first first chemo treatments or even with the radiation, but the double-dose of the chemo is quite a different thing altogether.

It was awful. It took my husband dashing madly off to the oncologist's office to pick up some prescription anti-nausea pills before I could even think about crawling more than ten feet away from the loo. I haven't been so violently and abruptly ill since I was three and ate a handful of rock salt. And the worst of it was remembering that time and thinking that maybe my body knows best in this instance, too--maybe I'm throwing up because these pills are poisoning me and my body is trying to get this crap back out again.

Once we got them, though, the anti-nausea drugs did the trick, thank god. Within half an hour I was able to stand up and even start working on my classes again, because that's the kind of crazy girl I am.

Actually, I have to say that going immediately back to work after projectile vomiting all day sounds crazy even for me. Where are my priorities?