1/19/12 - First Chemo Day - Part I

3:00 am. 
Not asleep yet. I try. I'm relaxed, comfortable, my eyes are even closed. But I do not sleep. I am not worried about chemo tomorrow... 'er later today at this point. I'm thinking about things I need from Target and Kroger and Pet Smart when my paycheck gets deposited.  I'm thinking about how much I love to walk with my dog, Bodhi. And about how long we've had our cats, and how Dot, especially, likes to take care of me. I think I started to drift off, but woke to the sound of Mokie delivering up a hairball. Dang, she was at the bottom of the bed too. Most landed on the floor. Cleaned up the mess. I went to get clean sheets and found I had not gotten around to washing the extra set, so gathered them up, and downstairs to the laundry room I went. Another thing I thought about when I was trying to sleep was that I forgot to make coffee for the morning, so I did that on my way thru the kitchen. Knocked over the pitcher of water and cleaned that up. Was pretty wide awake by this time, so I put away the dishes I had left to dry. And filled up the animals' water bowls.

So why can't I sleep? Steroids. I have to take them before a chemo treatment to prevent an allergic reaction. Crap!  The washer is making that unbalanced sound. Guess I shouldn't have added those few towels. Better go back downstairs to rearrange. (Left the scene.) Im back! I remembered that this medicine caused sleeplessness, but thought it came later in the game, and after I'd taken all the doses. I've only taken 2 of 12!

It's almost 4:00 now. My eyes feel heavy, but my body feels charged up. I guess I'm finished writing. I think the washer stopped. Back down to flip stuff into the dryer. Burning calories in the middle of the night! I feel like being ornery... maybe I'll switch everything around in the kitchen cabinets on my way back thru! Gotta keep Ric on his toes.

8:00 a.m.
Apparently pushed snooze many times on my alarm clock, but Bodhi woke me up at 7:00.  We went for our morning walk.  Got back home to find everything still in their proper places in the cabinets.  Don't know what happened to that idea.  I'm glad I didn't change things around... I would have confused not only Ric, but myself!  Must have drifted off to sleep sometime after 4:30.  Feeling a little sluggish this morning, and a little down.  I will likely sleep through a big part of the chemotherapy today.  Okay, I'm not feeling down anymore... saying those words out loud... or writing them... always seems to help me feel better.  I'm ready for this.  It's a great day to be a Mountaineer Chemo Patient!