Treatment # 2 - (she) leaves me in a cool, cool sweat

Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen

Treatment two is complete which means I can start to get a sense of how things should flow going forward.   Work overlap - still trying to look for trend lines.

You are encouraged to drink lots of water after treatment to help flush the drugs through your system.   Drinking lots of water means lots of running to the bathroom.    Lots of running to the bathroom means interrupted sleep at night which adds to being tired from the drugs themselves.   It's hard to find the balance.   I find myself waking up repeatedly in the night in a cold, cold sweat.  Go to the bathroom; back to bed; then feel hot and sweaty; drink more water and that resolves; back to sleep; repeat.    Typically 5-6 times a night.   Yes, it could be age but seems to be linked to treatment and eases off over the weeks following.

Food aversions.   If I listen carefully, my mind and body tells me immediately what is an ok thing to eat or not.   Hours before treatment I could have easily stuffed my face with Cadbury Mini-Eggs (horribly bad for you chocolate eggs covered in coloured, candied coating),   Once the drugs hit my system - no interest in them at all.   Same with last treatment - chocolate or sweats are out.   (Happily I got a bit of a reprieve a couple weeks later).    But it is pretty limited which means I haven't had to adjust my eating patterns too much.  

Next are the weird, no - bizarre dreams and thought patterns.   For example, I've been in a high school musical where Morgan Freeman died on stage (let's pray that neither of those ever happen); had numerous conversations with my kids that they swear never occurred; attended a hill-billy family reunion of sorts where I was adopted by the family and asked to organize a parade.   That was last night....can hardly wait for what`s on the billboard tonight.

I'm told tiredness will build with each treatment and I do notice less energy already with this one.   That can be managed with balancing activities with energy levels as the energy slowly returns over the following weeks leading up to the next treatment.   It's frustrating.   The night before treatment I acknowledged that I was probably at the highest energy level that I would find myself over the next 5-6 months.   It`s kind of weird thinking of it that way when you are used to thinking the opposite and trying to plan a regime to improve energy or fitness level over a similar period.   I noticeably feel the `it`s time to crash` throughout the day.  Just following the signs.

Good news is that the dreaded nausea is still under control and managed by the medication they recommend in the first three days.  After that Tums, Tums, Tums, Tums (think of the commercial) works well to get me through.

I`m feeling pretty good and very fortunate that so far things have been manageable.  Still only the start.  I`m not ignoring the fact that new things will come up along the way with the next treatments and change in medications with the second 4 rounds.