Well, having the rash begin to fade was a huge relief for me. You just can't imagine what a rash like that is like. No matter how hard you try, you can't stop itching it. And when it's that pervasive, there's always something on you that itches and everyone is telling you to stop itching. (Except the doctors, oddly enough. They seemed to understand that I was trying, but it was too much rash to be able to stop itching it.)

Monday I was finally released from the hospital. I was mad because I wanted to teach class that day, but no one would let me get to school. And they released me too late in the day to make it to my first class anyway. (I just don't understand why people think I take my job to extremes . . . .)

Chemo was supposed to happen every two weeks. I continued teaching my classes after I got out of the hospital and showed up on a day when I didn't have class for my first dose of chemo out of the hospital. The doctor's office had a pretty big chemo room filled with recliners, IV stands and people. I thought the recliners were a bit of an extravagance until I realized that I would be sitting in the dumb thing for about five hours the first time.

Oh yes. I can see I left out a bit of an important detail: telling the family back home in Texas (and the aunt and uncle in Ohio). I didn't call my mom right away. I figured that 1) she was 1000 miles away and couldn't come up here anyway; 2) we didn't know what I had right away; 3) why ruin everyone's Thanksgiving????

It would seem that parents would rather have their holidays ruined by a serious disease rather than wait a few days to find out. I still don't see it, myself, but whatever. Who can figure parents?     ;)

Well, as soon as the semester was over, I was wisked away by my uncle to have an early Christmas at my aunt and uncle's house. My mother and grandma were due to arrive later that evening. Basically I spent a week trying to convince my mom and grandma that I was all right. Everyone else could tell that things seemed to be on the mend, or at least that I didn't really want a ton of attention and sympathy and pity. Ergh, pity sucks.

The day of my first out-of-the-hospital chemo, my uncle drove me back into town that morning and I hit the clinic just a few days before Christmas. (The 23rd, I think, for those of you keeping count.) I hit the clinic around 11 and then had my blood drawn. As soon as the nurses got my bloodwork back, they started the IV. I spent something like four or five hours there. B-O-R-I-N-G!

Unexpected side effect of chemo for me: I get hyper. Little kid, way too much unfocused energy hyper. I could concentrate for perhaps the first hour or forty-five minutes and then I was sitting there bouncing in my seat and blabbing to the nurses constantly. I think they're going to have to stick my reaction in a textbook somewhere, because it's not really typical. Best guess is that the IV steroid they gave me to help curb the nausea must make me hyper.

After chemo was over, I'd be hyper, but just like a hyper little kid, I'd crash and crash hard a few hours later and "go down for naptime." It was embarrassing! Also like a little kid, I had some interesting mood swings and occassionally act like a bratty three-year-old in need of a time-out. This was the hardest thing for me: unfocused energy, mood swings and napping.

Chemo reactions >