How to Survive a Menty B breaks down medical trauma and illness-induced PTSD with me, a therapist with both PTSD and a Ph.D.
This is my survival guide, my survival story, and my survivor legacy.
How to Survive a Menty B is a library for people navigating the upheaval of medical trauma and PTSD. Each week, I explore a new topic and dissect the role of medical trauma in daily life and relationships.
If you need my other services, please visit my website www.drkrisyelrod.com
Consider joining the conversation, or donating to this project.
The Drink of Despair
Medical Trauma Journal
Friday 9/10/2021
Chemo 7. Taxol 3 of 4.
I had to reduce the dose by 10% and was devastated.
The effects of Taxol are cumulative for me, and if I continue this way, I will end up hospitalized. If I end up hospitalized because I am so sick and dehydrated from the side effects, I’d have to delay treatment a week or two, which is worse than lowering the dose.
I agreed that reducing the dose to complete the treatment schedule would work. However, I want to get to this finish line on time.
It’s ok.
My red and white blood cells were tanked, so I had no leg to stand on. I look like shit. I feel like shit. I am Dumbledore when he has to drink poison. It would break everyone’s heart to give me the full strength of dose-dense Taxol this week.
And still, part of me feels like a failure. They might give me 100% of the medicine if I complained less or were stronger. Of course, I’m pretty pitiful, so I doubt it. But there’s a voice in my head that blames this on me.
Wednesday 9/15/2021
I reduced the dose, but the bone pain and nausea remained.
Forever fatigue. I slept 12-14 hours daily because I couldn't open my eyes.
I’m having multiple intense hot flashes per hour all day now, and it gets worse starting at the stroke of 6 pm, sweaty old hag o’clock. It feels like a fire starts somewhere inside of me and has to come out. So I get full-body sweats and change my clothes all day.
Is this menopause? Cause that can fuck right off.
I'm chugging along, but this truly sucks.
I am still getting some food and exercise, trying to keep up my spirits.
Thursday 9/16/2021
Bone pain. Skeleton pain. Joint pain. Ugh.
Friday 9/17/2021
This whole week has managed to go by, and I am still poisoned and in pain.
All I can think about is finishing treatment and not knowing what the fuck to do with my life.
I want to be done with this part of treatment so very badly. Chemo is genuinely terrible. But at least I have a schedule and a plan. I have people checking on me regularly. I'm panicked at the thought of being done with actively fighting cancer in my body because I have no idea how to go forward like this. I have so many questions.
How do I make sure I don’t end up back here again?
Sunday 9/19/2021
I am tired of chemo side effects. Unfortunately, I still have an irritable stomach, am fatigued, have hot flashes, and a useless brain. And I’m sad my mom went home today.
Monday 9/20/2021
It’s a rough one today. My mom is not here, and I'm still feeling bad.
My stomach hurts at the thought of food.
I did half of my usual walk, and I had to go so, so slow. I was seriously hurting, too, like out of breath and about to puke, almost having tunnel vision from walking up half the hill as slowly as possible. And I started out chatty and walking regularly. Then boom, dead; good luck getting home.
It’s beautiful outside, practically air-conditioned, and I’m not physically overexerting. However, I happen to feel that bad, and my body is just that weak. I now can’t do something I have done every day all summer.
Anyone not ruined by Taxol should be happy because this is nasty. My brain is mush, my skeleton hurts, my stomach is on strike, and my life force is turned down further than I thought it could be.
I don’t know what I’m doing, and I feel lost. I dreamt Matt told me the “cancer thing was wearing thin” and that I needed to start doing more work around here. Of course, that’s nothing he’d ever say, but it indicates where my head is lately.
I felt terrible, so I put a wig on and worked on a bit of body appreciation with a photo project.
I want to sleep.
Tuesday 9/21/2021
There are days that this steals my breath with how bad it is. With how much I can't do what I want to do. With how fast every day goes by where I hardly do anything, and the day is gone. Everything takes effort. Walking yesterday was horrifying.
I know it's all part of the process. I will take my 8th and final dose of this chemo regimen on Friday. I don't know what happens next, but I will complete my chemo plans as of Friday, 9/24.
I do feel proud of that. I know I still have to live through the immediate side effects and then try to recover from the long-term side effects my body has to deal with. But I’ll know I did it on Friday once they stick that last chemo bag in my arm.
There were things I feared would happen, like getting super sick from a cut or a cold, but that didn't happen. And there were things I didn't anticipate would happen that did.
It was explained to me that Taxol could cause, in some people, bone pain and that this pain ranged anywhere from super mild to needing narcotics. So, I was like ok, well, I won't need drugs because I will be ok probably. I am tough, and pain isn't a massive thing for me.
Wrong. That bone pain is a real bitch. It’s narcotics for me.
Wednesday 9/22/2021
I am worn out, beaten to shit, and tired.
The night sweats are excessive even with acupuncture twice a week. Underwear, clothes, fitted sheets, flat sheets, and pillowcases are thoroughly soaked and drenched early at night. I sleep in a cold puddle daily and can do nothing about it. I sweat through the sheets no matter what I eat, drink, or do during the day.
I'm tired of it.
My bones still vaguely hurt. It's there but not there, and then it throbs every once in a while.
I don't have nose hairs, so my nose is always runny or sticky. That's a fun fact I didn't know would happen.
I'm stressed and tired and don’t feel I’m doing enough.
I don't know how to deal with anything, and a hot flash creeps up. I have to pull myself out of the cataclysm of spiraling shit in my brain to deal with the fire I started in my body. It’s relentless.
Everything feels so hard. Did it always feel this hard? Will it always feel so hard? To just get up and do things, to remember things I was supposed to do, or what fucking day it is?
Thinking that I have any idea about what I can do to improve my circumstances feels exceptionally like bargaining today. There is nothing, and there is no one to fix this. Just making it through and figuring it out later is a strategy that most people employ.
This is the last chemo coming up, and I am just super scared to be done with treatment. Active treatment, I guess. But who wants to stay in active treatment? I have been taking powerful drugs for almost four months now, so I'd like to remember what it feels like to be a regular 38-year-old who isn't being poisoned.
It's the last push, though, for now. I can do this part. I always knew that, and here I am. About to take my 8th chemo dose this summer. And on the heels of 3 surgeries and an IVF cycle. I can do this. I will make it through this. I have to keep going on.
I'll relax today and let myself off the hook for not being something superhuman and all-powerful.
I can permit myself to enjoy today, no matter what.
Same time next week?