Day 27 after last chemo.

27 days of complete and utter flatigue and an insane heart rate.

Every time I have made a movement, my body has perceived it as having finished a marathon. My entire body has gone all wobbly, heart rate has sky rocketed, and I’ve collapsed onto the closest chair-like object. Regaining control of my body has generally taken shorter time than decreasing my heart rate to something that can vaguely be called ‘normal’.

Life for the past 27 days has mostly been dragging myself from bed to the sofa, watching ancient reruns of Bones, Friends, NCIS and Master Chef (Junior). It’s also been numerous crappy reality shows (pawn shows, designer competitions etc) and Border Security: Australia’s Front Line which is actually kinda interesting/entertaining.

I can’t say how annoyed I was when I – last Sunday, ie day 20 – remembered that I have the dvd box sets of both Buffy and Angel. Coulda binged on them for three weeks instead of crappy daytime tv. At least I now have something fun to watch, as it doesn’t seem as if this flatigue is leaving anytime soon.

My concern has been my heart. An increased HR after exercise is normal – but this has been as far from normal as can be. I yawned and my HR spiked past 140 and stayed there for ten minutes. My normal HR at the hospital has been ca 65. The good thing is that once it passes 130, you don’t actually need to search for a pulse to check – cos your entire body is pounding with blood so you can sit still, close your eyes and just count. Dead easy.

The tricky part is falling asleep when you can feel your heart beating, hard, rhythmically, wondering if this is ever going to end. After a couple of hours of 120+ one tends to give in and take a sleeping pill. It’s weird how the rhythmical noise in a MRI/CT machine sends me to sleep, but my heart making the same kind of noise doesn’t – maybe because something in me is worried for chronic heart problems?

The irony in my mother dying of heart failure when she was 49 – and me now having massive heart problems at 44 – has not escaped me.

The skin on my feet is disintegrating so I got an electric foot file. I can actually pull off large pieces of 3-4 mm thick skin that has just loosened – I know, sounds disgusting – but between removing dead skin, filing, and lathering in massive amounts of lotion, we’re hopefully soon back to something resembling normal.

At least my nails haven’t loosened yet but my eyes are still running.

Massi is back on the road (yay!) so we had an enjoyable trip to the hospital for my next scheduled chemo. I can drive. It’s just the walking to and from car, getting in and out of car, and all that stuff that sends my ticker into a frenzy. At the moment I have three options for getting to the hospital: drive myself, take public transport (out of the question for my immunocompromised body), or be at the mercy of Pasientreiser. Seeing as the early shift take great pleasure in changing orders and sending out cars an hour early, that is no longer an option.

It was when I could shower & get ready in ten minutes. I now need an hour just for showering. So – we drive. The fact that it’s a good 300 m walk from the car park to the hospital should be interesting. Seeing as I normally can manage 10-15 m before collapsing, this will not only be a marathon for me, it’ll be an ultramarathon.

Speaking of which. Chemo brain has run out of power even if heart is pounding on at 130. I love my fake-life. tbc…