April 6

Today was my first day of oral chemo. That means 3 pills in the morning and two at night. This stuff is called zoloda. The anti nausea tablets they gave me have the playful name adansetron. Fun with pharmaceutical names. The zoloda cause mild nausea for me. It is manageable. I rest for a while and it goes away. I expect that side effect will diminish. The real question is how I will do when they add the two intravenous concoctions on Thursday. That stuff is a two chemical cocktail that is expected to remove my hair, and make me nauseous. Everything makes me nauseous. I am pretty sure that is a prerequisite for cancer medicines, "must cause nausea" is appended to every FDA approval.

So today was welcome to zoloda day and I slept as much as I could to avoid the feeling of the world spinning without me, or spinning too much. Sleep is not really a good description. I was not awake but I did not sleep either. There is another state known only to cancer patients, it is like resting with your eyes closed but without the restorative quality of real sleep. I spent a lot of time in that state today. Tonight I am praying for real sleep so I don't wrestle myself awake in the middle of the night and lay there for hours pondering my condition. Pretty scary when you are all alone in the dark of night and all of your life comes back to you. Tomorrow will be a better day. I expect to go out and enjoy life a little.

So, I still have my sense of humor, life is still rolling along and this situation rolls with life. Six weeks of nausea and chemo visits and then I find out how it will go.

Tomorrow is another day.