Nicole's Notes

The nice thing with Penny, is she never complains if I want to watch endless episodes of Good Eats (we've seen the jam making episode 3 times now) or listen to non-stop Christmas music. She doesn't demand conversation, although she does make me smile involuntarily now and again (ow!).

Not that Jason hasn't been fabulous through all of this: going out in the snow on repeated occasions to bring me ice cream, vaseline lip goop, pudding, kleenex and various other necessities. But I like to talk to him, and that's a bad thing right now.

Frankly, I'm pretty damned frustrated by the current state of affairs. It's all well and good for the nurse to tell me to drink lots of fluids, but it's a bitch when bits of your lip stick to the edge of the glassware. Ooops. I was going to leave out the gory bits, wasn't I? Sorry.

So the first week of December was my treatment week. I left work early every day to go to the hospital for my shot. Aside from some mild nausea and being tired out from the driving, I was fine.

The second week started out not-so-fine. I was miserable with a sore throat, sore face, and sore mouth, so I didn't go in to work. The majority of the symptoms passed fairly quickly from Hell to something I'll survive. Except for my lips. They don't seem to be improving. I can't go back to work while they're like this.

For one thing, they look like they were transplanted from some sort of monster. For another, they feel like it. I wish I could get a lip transplant. I can't imagine they'll heal very quickly when I keep cracking them by eating, drinking, talking, etc.

So this is the beginning of the third week, and today is the 6th day of work I've missed. The shoddy thing about this is that what with all the snow we had last weekend, followed with freezing rain/sleet/misery last night, I know it's a stressful time at the office, and we're already short-handed.

When the doctors told me that the top three side effects of my particular chemo drugs were nausea, diarrhea and mouth sores, I thought, well, I can deal with that. As a veteran car-sicker, nausea and I are old buddies. Diarrhea, well, that's what Imodium's for, right? And mouth sores? I can deal with a few canker sores, after all, I wore braces for two-plus years, and it didn't kill me. At least, not so you'd notice.

I don't think I understood the scope. Either that or this is not a normal reaction. I'm thinking (hoping) the latter. I called the nurse on Friday and she suggested slathering my lips with vaseline. I don't know if I'm over-reacting, or if she just isn't understanding how evil this is. I'm gearing myself up to go to the hospital so that they can see for themselves how wretched I look (and by extension, feel), but I'm nervous that I'll scare any children I pass in the hallway! Maybe I'll wear one of those dust masks.

Speaking of which, I can't imagine Air Canada will be thrilled to have me aboard when I look like this - I could be carrying something worse than SARS by the looks of things! Fortunately, my family has announced that if I'm not up to coming there, they'll come here. But it's a pain in the butt. Seriously. And I'd be VERY bitter to miss out on New Year's at Kristen's cottage. It's the only time I really get to hang out with some of the RTS gang, and plus, it's a lot of fun.

Okay, I feel much better for kvetching.