Round One

ROUND ONE

Remember what I said about the lack of side effects from modern chemotherapy? I think that the lovely brochure that came with the stuff I’ve been on lists about six possibles so guess which idiot managed to clock up nine. I just finished the first 2 week cycle and in truth didn’t like it whole lot. That said, I’ve felt far worse on many occasions and I certainly prefer it to the "being dead soon" option. It sure as hell isn’t disastrous and I suppose you could just describe it as making you feel pretty rough. I thought I had managed to find a side effect that was so rare that I would get an entry in all the medical journals. After about 10 days I noticed that the sides of my nose were swelling up considerably and were becoming painful; I couldn’t find anything in the literature or on the internet to explain the symptoms. This is a catch 22 situation. Do I go public and become a world wide celebrated freak or should I be a wimp and just hang on for a week until my next appointment with the Cancer Wizard. I'm not sure why, but for once, wimpishness prevailed. Never having considered myself to be an hypochondriac it hadn’t occurred to me that I should attempt to blame anything other than the chemo. Dumb beyond my wildest dreams. It was my bloody glasses. Yes, too long in front of the screen wearing glasses that sit where?

Tinglynumbysick adequately describes the feelings, with no individual thing being that horrible, so the overall effect isn’t that much worse than having a bad bout of ‘flu, which is definitely better than a bad bout of dead. I haven’t decided yet whether to tell the Wizard that he caused the nose problems. On the one hand they are very busy people but on the other, I think it does them good to have a challenge and encounter something different. It also must boost their self esteem if they think that they are going to have a new syndrome or disease named after them. I think I’ll play it by ear and hope that the Wizard hasn’t looked at the blog.