Chemo and overwhelm

Last week was the second week of my most recent chemo round. I always do poorly on the second week. I’m now in the third week, which is a recovery week (no chemo this week).

I have two primary side effects from the chemo. One I’ve already talked about – it’s called hand-foot syndrome, and the nerves and cells in the lower layers of skin in the palms of my hands and feet are being damaged. This is causing stiffening of the skin, tingling, burning, peeling, and swelling. I don’t mind dealing with it as a temporary issue, but sometimes the damage can be permanent. So we are monitoring that closely.

The other main issue I’m having is psychological. We didn’t expect this, but it turns out it is a known side effect of chemotherapy.

One of the primary symptoms is I’m having trouble tracking anything. I find myself sitting and staring. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. Eventually I’ll notice that I quit halfway through loading my laundry into the dryer from the washer. Or I’ll see that I didn’t finish what I was eating and it’s still sitting on the table.

I’m failing to reply to emails and texts. I’m not remembering to track all our paperwork (I run a small business and we have rentals, so our billing/banking/scheduling system is complicated and time consuming). Not to mention all the health insurance and health care related headaches due to the cancer.

I have taken to setting alarms on my phone for everything – an alarm to make sure I feed the dogs, and alarm to make sure I’m ready to walk when Darren takes his mid-morning break at 10:00, an alarm for each of my zoom and phone meetings, etc. My phone is forever sitting in some strange place, cheerfully alarming to itself about whatever I’ve forgotten about. When it came time for lunch yesterday and I hadn’t even showered yet, I realized I might have to set an alarm to make sure I shower!

My second big issue is anxiety. I’ve never been very trusting of the universe. Life has never seemed very predictable or dependable in the past. But now I’m really struggling to envision a positive future for myself. COVID is doing that to all of us, but cancer adds yet another dimension to my tendency to not trust the future.

I have not written very much about the fact that we are selling two of our rentals. Normally a real estate transaction (not to mention two at the same time) would be a fairly big deal for us, but life is so crazy at the moment that it just seems tangental, something going on in the background – like trying to get our taxes done.

And yet, it’s chugging along. The Santa Fe rental is sold! We signed our closing papers on Friday and it recorded Monday. I expected the signing appointment to be a very boring little blip in an otherwise difficult week. It turned out to be harder than I expected, and I’m blaming the chemo.

I knew Friday was going to be a bad chemo-side-effect day, but that was our closing date and signing paperwork isn’t that hard. They told us we could have a curbside signing in our own car. It sounded workable. I can do this! Right? How hard could it be? Sign a few papers in our car and we’re done.

We parked near the entrance, called to let them know we were there, rolled down our windows, and waited in the hot car with our masks on. After 15 minutes, we called them again, and they said someone would be right out.

Eventually a woman came rushing out and ran right up to my car window, loudly apologizing for having left her mask in her office. I shrank back into my seat, feeling trapped. I couldn’t take a couple steps back myself – I was sitting in the car. I felt hemmed in. I tried to request that she go back and get her mask, but she was talking so much, so loudly that she didn’t hear me, muffled behind my own mask. I tried to explain that I had cancer and was immunocompromised, but all that did was elicit further animated apologies. I couldn’t figure why she wasn’t backing off, or better yet, turning around and going back inside to get her mask. So I asked her to please walk around to the other side of the car.

The moment she stepped away from my car door, I leaped out of the car. I stood in the parking lot for a moment, watching her talk into John’s window, loudly. That wasn’t an improvement – we don’t want him sick either!

I’m not sure if I was mad or scared or what – it felt more like confusion and overwhelm. All I know is what I did next. I took off walking down the sidewalk. Without my phone, without explanation, without a destination. I just left. I remember vaguely thinking that if she can make us wait 20 minutes in a hot car, I can go on a 5 minute walk to clear my head.

John said that after I left she was quite apologetic. Now I feel bad for making her feel bad. That wasn’t my intent. I just suddenly needed out of there.

It’s been very challenging for John and I to watch my personality change. It’s not like I’m a completely different person – after all, as I mentioned in my last post, I panicked in a huge crowd 5 years ago. But Friday’s event was nothing compared to that situation. The signing on Friday only involved one friendly person, bringing us paperwork without a mask. I waaaaay over-reacted. Can I no longer handle even a slight disruption in a boring day? It’s so strange to no longer be the person I think I am.

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