Time for a chemo break

The best way to look at chemo is I am done for 14 days - next week I get a break. Today's treatment, the third one I've been through, went fine, although I was stuck in the Yankee pod again. I requested the Sox pod for the next treatment, in two weeks. No Yank fan seemed alert enough today to give me grief for the sweep two weeks ago.

Best part of the experience today was being accompanied by a friend who is a cancer survivor and also went through chemo. She had plenty of practical advice and insights into the effects of chemo, especially mentally. Nice to know much of what I'm going through is "normal'' and to hear from someone who emerged from the other end of the ordeal with body and mind intact. Her stories also reminded me that chemo for other types of cancers tend to strike people harder than my treatment has hit me.

She also advised me that the third in a series of treatments is likely to have the biggest effect, since there tends to be a residual effect from the earlier sessions. Docs have told me that, but it didn't fully register before. She also said not to be afraid to scale back activities and commitments this week, since I'm likely to be more tired than I was before.

Right now the steroids that I get to counteract the effects of the chemo - although only half the dose I got two weeks ago - is giving me a little boost in energy. I can better understand where baseball players like Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi etc. were coming from when they decided to use them.