With the additional week of chemo -- frontloaded with the nastier, stronger Ara-C -- what had been a minor nuisance is turning into something more. More constant, more ever-present, this pit in my stomach. The taste, too. I can't get rid of it, even with all of the mints mom brings for me to devour. It's internal. The taste comes from inside somewhere, and mints do nothing for it.
You can emulate the taste, short term, by getting your key chain. Pick a key, any key. House, car, bike lock, whatever. Something nice and good and metallic and suck on it for a few minutes. Taste it. Enjoy the taste for a few minutes only but, please, do not drink a tall cold glass of milk. We have already learned that certain foods and tastes don't mix all that well with that yummy taste of metal.
With or without food, my body is unhappy with the metallic taste, or with the chemicals passing through it. It doesn't take much anymore: just the smell of somebody else's food moving past my door is enough to make me want to vomit. I've moved well past the stage of actually thinking it's kind of cool to just puke all the time. You know, strange things happening to your body, marveling at the way it reacts to new situations and new environments? Neat-o. I'm puking for no reason at all.
The novelty has worn off. The fact that my body is reacting to chemo is no longer gee-whiz cool. It pretty much sucks; a necessary condition on the road to remission.
The discussion, now, turns to comfort. I don't know if the steps we're talking about were ever meant to be palliative. Before Paul's lung cancer -- Stage IV when he was diagnosed, metastasized, already spread to his brain before any treatments began -- I'd never even heard the term before. Things will get pretty dodgy in the weeks ahead, especially after my additional week of chemo, but we haven't thrown in the towel yet.
We're not so concerned about ensuring that I'm comfortable in the final weeks or months of my life as we are about trying to find some way to offset the side effects of my treatment.
I don't bring it up. I don't ask for any drugs or anything. But I am past the point of keeping up a brave face all the time, shiny happy patient, pretending like the stomach flip-flops and constant kneeling visits to the toilet don't bother me. It is amazing what can happen when you actually tell the people who are caring for you when conditions are becoming unbearable.
Cindy brings up the subject first (in response, no doubt, to my recent complaints).
"You know, Robert," she says, "we can try to do something about the nausea."
"Stop the chemo?" I ask. No harm asking.
"No. Not that. We can give you marijuana. It helps ease things for some people. It just kind of evens out your stomach."
It's not like I'm embarassed about it, but they're always so matter-of-fact about these things. I don't want to say no, because I'm sure they wouldn't suggest it if they didn't think it was a good idea. But I'm not at all comfortable with Cindy's suggestion. I've seen patients downstairs. They stand outside in the rising sun, wearing bathrobes or pajamas, just beyond the sliding glass doors. They need their cigarettes. They need their morning nicotine. There are very few things I'd like to do less right now than join those frowning faces outside, smoking not so much because I want to, but because I have to. Doctors orders, I will need to tell them as I smoke marijuana from my wheelchair. Honest.
"Umm... I'm really sorry, but I don't smoke. I don't much feel like learning, either. Is there anything else?"
Spontaneous laughter. A smile as warm as the sunrise.
"Oh, it's not like that," she says. "It's a marijuana pill. Synthetic. We'll give you a pill."
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