looking at the end of chemo....

I just finished chemo a week ago. I have read that however long a chemo patient is tired while on chemo, s/he will be tired for that long again after it's done. I was tired at the end there..... the last 3-4 weeks, maybe? HOwever, it wasn't all the time, just more often than usual. Like some days I would go back to sleep after the kids and Alan had left for school and work -- if it was a day without a bike ride or chemo. I feel more energetic just after one chemo-free Thursday. However, I still want more sleep. (Yeah I'm going up to bed, right after this.)

Anyway on the days that I'd nap in the morning I'd set my alarm to I could make it to the midday swim. I’d fall into a deep sleep accessible only in the morning, it seems, and when the alarm would go off (two hours later!) I’d be completely wiped, no interest in waking up. (that's chemo, not how I usually awaken from naps.) I always made myself, though, and until maybe the last week or two I always felt better after I swam. Maybe it was just the last week that was a struggle. There was one day (just last week) when I didn’t make it to swim, and walked the dog instead – for an hour, a good walk…. But the swim I had meant to catch was ending about when I started the walk; it was a matter of needing more recovery time.

That was the day after I had taken the morphine on an emptier stomach than I realized…..I felt still full from a snack I’d had an hour or so before, but I woke up so nauseated the next morning that I couldn’t help with the kids….. and then by the time I woke up again from the nap I probably had low blood sugar too….. At least I had thought to have Alan put some food by the bed for me before he went to work so I could get something into me before I got up and got nauseated again. However – that whole problem was because of mismanagement of meds (I took it on an emptyish stomach) and preexisting problems (tendency to get low blood sugar.) The main thing that was chemo related was the fact that I was taking morphine in the first place.. And by the way – I was taking it not because the pain I was feeling was so severe. It was flulike body aches that I had (still have, but less now.) The problem was that I had flulike body aches for about 6 weeks. I’m not sure I’d ever felt anything for that kinda time before…… and lemme tellya, it gets old after about 3. (Well for the first two I was trying to heal myself because I really thought it was some viral thing.)

Anyway, I started to get tired a good month after the body aches started. I can't promise I was tired entirely because of the chemo, though.... ONce school started our alarm started going off at 6am. Honestly I've always fantasized about taking a nap after they’d all left.... I just never let myself until I got a cancer diagnosis. :-D Now maybe I will let myself more often...... I mean, really, getting up in the dark is inhumane.

I always feel bad waking the kids that early. As it gets colder I often sometimes let Matthew sleep later and drive him to school. It's bad on the gas but nicer on his sleep. I’ve been pretty strict with him this fall, though, because he gets into habits and I know I won’t be up for driving him after my surgery. So now we have a deal…. The deal I wanted was no screen time after 10pm on weekdays – I figured that way he’d get sleepy on his own… reasonable, right? Well he didn’t go for it, so now we have a different deal – as long as he’s pleasant in the morning and makes it to his school bus, he can control his bedtime…. The day he grouses at me or misses his bus his bedtime is mine. It’s funny to see him in the morning…. I come in and wake him and ask him how he slept – and he goes straight from being completely out of it to “Huh? Oh -- fine, thanks!” He is really good at it – he can almost do it in his sleep…… now if he can just avoid getting sick…..