I had chemo yesterday, so if I’m a little quieter than usual for the next few days, that’s why.
I’m okay. Or at least okay in the very loose definition of the word I’ve developed over the last couple of years. Nothing new happened. There’s no scary update hiding behind me being quiet. It’s just chemo week, and chemo week has become its own little stretch of time in my life.
Yesterday was Enhertu.
Treatment day itself usually isn’t the worst part for me. I get all the medications that come with it, get hooked up, get through treatment, come home, and sometimes I’m still able to function pretty normally for the rest of the day.
It’s the days after that get me.
Today I’m tired. My body feels heavy, my head isn’t completely with me, and I’m starting to get that overall feeling that tells me the Enhertu has officially caught up with me. It’s hard to explain because it isn’t always one symptom you can point to. It’s more like my entire body is using its energy somewhere else and there isn’t much left over for me.
And, technically, it is.
Enhertu doesn’t only affect cancer cells. Like a lot of cancer treatments, it can affect healthy cells too, which is part of why the side effects can feel so widespread. Fatigue, nausea, appetite changes, stomach issues, mouth sores, taste changes, low blood counts. One little bag of medicine manages to have opinions about basically every part of my body.
For me, the first day after treatment is usually the beginning.
Days three and four tend to be harder.
That’s when the nausea really settles in, food gets harder, the metallic taste gets worse, and the exhaustion becomes the kind that doesn’t care how much I slept the night before. Sometimes my bones hurt. Sometimes my head hurts. Sometimes I sleep most of the day. Every round has its own personality, but by now I know the general schedule.
Then, slowly, I start climbing back out of it.
That’s basically what chemo week looks like around here.
It isn’t seven straight days of being violently sick in bed, and it isn’t one bad afternoon in an infusion chair either. There are hours where I feel almost normal mixed in with hours where taking a shower feels like I accomplished something. I might answer emails in the morning and sleep all afternoon. I might be working on The Village from my laptop while simultaneously feeling like garbage. I might post something and then disappear for twelve hours.
Cancer has made me very good at doing two completely contradictory things at the same time.
Right now I’m also going into these cycles with a body that’s already tired.
That’s probably the biggest change I’ve noticed as treatment has continued. Three weeks gives me time to recover, but recovering and returning to where I was before all of this are two very different things.
I get better.
I don’t necessarily get all the way back.
Then it’s time for another round.
So today I’m listening to my body a little more than I usually like to. I’m eating when food sounds remotely appealing. I’m staying on top of nausea meds instead of waiting until I need them. I’m drinking what I can. I’m resting when my body makes it very clear that we’re done negotiating.
And I’m still doing things, because apparently I don’t know how not to.
There are books sitting here. There is an entire Village I’m putting together. There are messages I need to answer and things I want to write and normal life happening around all of it.
I’ll get to it.
Maybe just a little slower this week.
So if you’ve messaged me and I haven’t answered yet, or Mojo & The Mess seems a little quieter than normal, I’m still here.
I’m just in that part of the three-week cycle where my body gets first dibs on me.
Chemo was yesterday.
Now we recover.
And before I disappear back into chemo week for a little bit, thank you.
Thank you for every message, every thought, every prayer, and every person who checks in even when I don’t always have the energy to answer. I read them. I see them. And they mean more to me than I probably ever manage to say.
Thank you, too, to everyone who has checked out the support pages on the site, shared them, used the resources, supported my books, or found another way to support me and Mojo & The Mess. None of it is expected, and I never take any of it for granted.
If you’re newer here, there are also pages on the site with cancer resources, ways to support, information about my books, and more about The Village and everything I’m working on outside of these blog posts.
And to everyone subscribed and still showing up here to read these very unfiltered pieces of my life, thank you for being here. Whether you’ve been reading since the beginning or somehow just stumbled into this mess, I’m really glad you’re here.
I’ll be back when my body gives me a little more of myself back.
Until then, thank you for sticking around.
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