Another day

Ok so today is another day. I can tell you that since the first day of Chemo I had expected that the days would gradually get better. The nausea the first day was as someone I know would put it....crippling. I only hoped that would be the last crippling day. It has been from a nausea point of view. Energy is something I wish I had more of. I never know how much I'm going to have or what to do with it. So I confess. I am a royal pain in the ass, during this suck they call Chemo. I can only hope that Preggers is inducted into Sainthood for putting up with my crap. She's nothing if not persistent, and here's why.
I enjoy eating...well normally anyway. Since Chemotherapy I can't really stomach anything..not food not drink. So she has to coerce me into eating something....at least three times a day. The sight of food just turns my stomach. The smell of food....yep turns my stomach. It's unnerving I really like food. At least I used to. Thats one of the many fun side effects. Weight loss is another. I have lost uh...almost 20 pounds, total anyway was down 15 pounds...and up 5 and now back down a few....I'm at 172ish. I wouldn't call it 20 down from original but whatever. Um well the one effect thats almost gone but so far really isn't my favorite is called Peripheral Neuropathy.
Peripheral Neuropathy is what the tingle you get when you fall asleep on your arm. That intense tingle is what I feel everytime I touch something cold. My whole hand or fingers just start tingling. To make it even more fun...Johnny tell'em what he's won. I can't drink anything or eat anything cold. My esophagus starts tingling.....way intense tingling. So all my drinks have to be warmed up. No cold foods for me. It's kind of a pain in the ass.

I told Preggers that I needed to get out of the house yesterday. The days seem so long. I wake up and eat...under protest. Take my meds. Lounge for a bit. Take a nap wake up eat something else under further protest, take another nap wake up look around and realize that I haven't been napping long enough...check the mail....take a nap. Eat dinner, take my meds....watch some t.v. Shower....go to sleep. I think of it like a time machine. Thats what we called it when we went out to sea. We would spend time in the rack sleeping...it made the bad times go faster. Or at least seemed that way. I figure that the nausea isn't so bad when I'm sleeping and that the pain isn't so bad while I'm out. So the time machine is where I choose to be. I don't know how else to explain it. So back to the needing to get out of the house. I thought how bad can a walk around the house be, just a quick jaunt around the block. Except that it wasn't quick by any stretch of the imagination. It was long...and painful....lightheaded and chest pains....ok bad idea. Mental note don't do that again. Not for awhile anyway. Alrighty...I'll leave this one alone now. I am going to sleep. I haven't stayed up this long in almost a week.

The Battlefield

I wrote this last night but wasn't sure I wanted to post it.......here it is.

I apologize now for this post. It’s not about the baby...not directly anyway. It's 1:15 in the morning here in the great state of Connecticut. I have much to say I think and I don't know how tactful I can be. Preggers is at work and I'm alone. Alone with myself and my thoughts, I can only wonder what tomorrow brings. Really it brings a dresser for the baby’s room. Beside that I am unsure of what’s going to happen. I think I should “feel” something. Really all I am is angry…because I don’t feel anything.

For those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with Gastric Cancer. It seemed as nonchalant a conversation as one could ever have. I sat with Preggers in the Oncologists office, waiting for the news I knew was coming. I was hoping deep inside somewhere that it was a mistake. Somebody in the pathology lab was a little tired after lunch and they saw something that wasn't there. You have Cancer. No one ever expects to hear those words. I certainly didn't. I laugh alot about it. I don't know what else to do. I must seem like a fucking lunatic laughing out loud as if I've lost my mind. I have I don't know where it went but its hiding from this reality that is going to hit me like a ton of bricks. I try to remain positive. I try not to think about it. Try really is the operative word. What other choice do I have? Everything I do now revolves around it, my appointments and planning. What will I be doing next week...next month? Make plans....its going to be tough. I don't know how I'm going to feel. I don't know if I'll be up to it. Up to what you ask? Everything, and nothing. I don't know if I'll be well enough to make the Obstetrics appointments, strange that I was worried that my military obligations would hold me from that.

If you were to ask me what cancer felt like I couldn’t tell you. I don’t feel anything. Which makes it that much harder when I have to surrender to the treatment that is going to destroy what I can’t feel. I've had diagnostic tests all last week and yesterday. "Staging" they call it. I can tell you what that feels like though. To determine where, how much and what they're gonna do. A procedure to them, a list of things to accomplish before going home, it’s their job. They go home and remove themselves from it as easily as if they were working any other job. It's a life to me, actually its 3. Me, my wife and the life of my unborn child may be affected. My life, the life I live doesn’t belong only to me. It encompasses those I love and those that love me I have to be strong for them. I have to remove stress from my life so that it doesn’t affect Sarah. Every appointment is another part of the checklist of treatment. I want to do them all at once. I want it over with. On an ever growing positive note its small and its localized. Call it what you want, its taking over my life....no matter how small it may be. I have pondered this for a week now. I heard that they found the cancer cells last Monday it was the 7th of may. It was then that I hoped the mistake was made. The Confirmation was 2 days later. I don't want to tell the story again of the hows and whens. I'm tired of telling it. I'm tired.

Chemotherapy starts on Thursday. Thursday afternoon at 12:10. I don't know much about it. I know the side effects. I know what what happens to other people. I just don't know what happens to me. What lies in store for me as the evil poison enters my blood to eradicate the cancer that has placed its foot inside the threshold of my body. I see it like the picture of the sharks. I am below and the sharks are the chemo....and its going to suck but I have to swim it to get to the surface. I've done my research, my recon of the battlefield before the conflict. I know what to expect. But I'm not ready for the war.