No one really talks about this part.
Not the day of treatment.
Not the chair.
Not the IV.
Not the brave face.
I mean the days after your first treatment — when the adrenaline wears off, the steroids fade, and your body quietly (or not so quietly) starts reacting to what you just put it through.
I had my first Enhertu treatment, and I went in trying to stay neutral. Not optimistic. Not panicked. Just… realistic. I told myself I’d take it hour by hour. Day by day.
Turns out, my body had its own timeline.
Day One: “I Think I’m Okay?”
The first day after treatment felt deceptively manageable.
A little tired.
A little off.
That vague, hard-to-describe feeling like something is brewing but hasn’t fully arrived yet.
I kept waiting for the crash everyone talks about. I cleaned up a bit. I answered messages. I convinced myself that maybe — maybe — this wouldn’t be as bad as I feared.
That was naïve.
But also understandable.
When you live with cancer, you learn to grab onto any quiet moment and hope it lasts.
Day Two: The Weight Settles In
Day two was when my body started to feel heavy.
Not sore in a gym way.
Not sick in a flu way.
Just… weighted. Like gravity had been turned up.
My muscles felt weak. My head felt foggy. Standing took more effort than it should have. Sitting didn’t help much either. I wasn’t in sharp pain — it was more like my entire body was saying, “Hey. We noticed what you did.”
The nausea hovered instead of crashing in. Enough to kill my appetite. Enough to make food feel unappealing but still necessary.
And the exhaustion — the kind that sleep doesn’t fix — started creeping in.
Day Three: This Is the Part That Breaks You a Little
By day three, it wasn’t just physical anymore.
This is the day that messes with your head.
The fatigue deepened. The weakness lingered. My body felt unfamiliar, like it belonged to someone else and I was just borrowing it badly.
But the hardest part?
The emotional drop.
The “oh shit, this is my life right now” realization.
Treatment is no longer theoretical.
Side effects aren’t a list anymore.
They’re happening inside your body.
I cried — not because I was scared of dying, but because I was tired of having to endure. Tired of adjusting. Tired of listening to my body misfire and not knowing which symptoms are temporary and which ones might stick around.
It’s a very quiet kind of grief.
The Things No One Warns You About
No one tells you how much energy it takes just to exist after treatment.
How showering can feel like a victory.
How answering texts can feel overwhelming.
How guilt sneaks in when you cancel plans you already warned people you might cancel.
No one prepares you for how lonely it can feel even when you’re surrounded by love.
Because this part — the aftermath — is mostly invisible.
What Helped (Even a Little)
I’m learning — slowly — that the days after treatment aren’t about pushing through. They’re about allowing.
Allowing rest without justification.
Allowing bad moods without fixing them.
Allowing my body to be inefficient and unreliable for a while.
I’m letting myself be horizontal when I need to be. I’m eating what I can tolerate. I’m lowering the bar so low that surviving the day counts as enough.
Because it is enough.
If You’re In This Part Too
If you’re in the days after your first treatment — or any treatment — and you’re wondering why this feels harder than you expected, you’re not weak.
You’re not dramatic.
You’re not failing treatment.
You’re responding to it.
And that response looks different for all of us.
Before You Go 🤍
If you’re here, reading this, thank you.
This space exists because of readers like you — people who show up, sit with the hard parts, and remind me I’m not screaming into the void. Writing Mojo & the Mess on days like these isn’t easy, but it matters. And your presence here matters more than you probably realize.
If you want to:
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Whether you subscribe, share, donate, or just quietly read — thank you for being part of this messy, honest corner of the internet.
I’m still here.
Still writing.
Still figuring it out one day after treatment at a time.
— Izzy 🖤
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