Walrus Season
I was recently talking to my friend Lindsey, who has been my BFF since we were 4 and 5 years old, about how I was feeling during this whole ordeal.
Ever since my weekend escape to New York (which I'll write about later), I've been totally, utterly knackered. Like lying splayed out on the couch with as little clothing as possible, occasionally misting myself when a Lupron-induced hot flash comes along (which right now is about every 20-30 minutes), propping up my legs with pillows so the swelling goes down again. Super sexy. Gotta love medication side effects.
I was describing this to Lindsey, saying that I was basically emulating a walrus. Her response was beautiful:
Thanks, Linz. The laugh was apparently audible on the other side of the house.
What Walrus Season Means to Me
With all the drugs I'm on and all the treatments going on, I'm not even sure where some of the side-effects are coming from, but there's a wide, wide range of them. I thought it might be fun to take a humorous look at everything going on, so let's go through some, shall we?
1. Vision
I had my most recent eye appointment the day I found the lump, so it's a memorable one for me. I got my nifty new glasses in January. The prescription was a bit too strong, so they had to be redone. At the same time, I got some sample contacts that were also too strong.
These contacts are now what I wear when I need to drive or see distances, because one of the effects of the chemo I’m on is that I can't see anymore. I'm squinting at the television 15 feet away from me with my new glasses on. They say it's going to get better when chemo is done. Here's hoping, because on top of rapidly worsening eyesight just being a rather disconcerting and sci-fi experience to have, I'd hate to think that my awesome new glasses were a waste of money.
2. Taste and Smell
As much as my vision is suffering, I have developed superpowers in these two other senses. If I ever wanted to get a job as a super-taster, now would be the time.
Examples:
Mom brought home a rotisserie chicken from the store last week. I could smell it from the opposite side of the house.
The #teambewb perfume I made while visiting Tamsan this April is now almost overwhelming to me, but I'm totally in love with it. I can smell all the subtleties of the few drops of patchouli flower, frankincense and gardenia in the mix that originally were a bit overpowered by the amber, musk and sandalwood base notes, and it's really lovely.
I usually have plain Fage Greek Yogurt and a banana for breakfast every morning, but because it's July 4th week on Martha's Vineyard, the price shot up to almost $10/container, so we got the Cabot kind instead. Trying it for the first time this morning, I could instantly taste the fact that they cut corners and use powdered milk in it to fake the effect of strained yogurt. I Googled it, and that's exactly what’s going on; there was even a lawsuit. I’ve had the stuff before and never noticed it, but my new super-sensitive palate picks up everything.
3. Energy
I have none.
My FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) has turned into FOOEY (Fear Of Over-Exerting Yourself).
Simple things like making the bed result in me needing to immediately lie down in it. I totally faked it this weekend and ran around like a younger, more fit, non-cancer-patient version of myself, am I paying the pretty price of it now...hence Walrus Season. In lieu of a birthday dinner after my last chemo on Thursday, I’m now thinking that getting Uber Eats delivered to the LaQuinta and enjoying it sans-pants is sounding pretty stinking good right now. Pants are overrated, anyway.
4. The Morrissey Effect
(note: This is the closest I'll ever get to not totally disliking Morrissey, and like these symptoms, this, too, will pass.)
Right now, I'm not interested in the opposite sex at all. I can be in a room with someone I would otherwise consider super ridiculously attractive, and not feel a thing, save for an intellectual acknowledgement that they have attractive features. I look at super hot dudes in the same way your grandma would comment that someone in your class was a "nice-looking boy." It's fine, though, because with all the other things going on, dating anyone has fallen to the bottom of the priority list for the time being. I'm told this will come back as well...thank God.
Good lawd, he's insufferable.
4. Heat Intolerance
I grew up in hot places. Aside from summers with my grandparents, I only really lived in New England for a few years in high school and college, and then for 17 months after Katrina, and it was always too cold for me.
Heat, on the other hand, has not been an issue for me. I've lived through the punishing New Orleans summer for the last 18 years, during which I go out like normal, walk the dog on the levee, go to shows when it's blazing hot out, and do things in the daytime, but just wear light clothes and SPF 50.
I can't even conceive of that right now.
My mental reaction imagining me in New Orleans this summer is something akin to the cry-laugh emoji. Just wouldn't happen.
There was a heat wave in New York when we were there; I couldn't leave the apartment until 6 pm on Sunday because I would have passed out. It's a good thing I'm on the Vineyard this summer because it's on average about 10° cooler than even Boston. I'm actually kind of dreading living downtown for the 6 weeks of radiation, but I seem to remember that it cools off here at the end of August, so maybe there's hope.
5. Hot Flashes
These beauties are from the Lupron they gave me to shut down the estrogen that was feeding the cancer. And yeah, they pair SUPER well with the heat intolerance.
So back in the day, my mom came to pick me up from UMass one chilly winter weekend when it was about 10º outside. Throughout the whole trip back, she'd have a hot flash and suddenly roll down all the windows in the station wagon, flooding the car with absolutely freezing air. As stated above, I've always been more of a hot weather person, so I was frozen to the bone and yelling things like "Why don't you just take off your winter coat?! I’m freezing!!"
I now empathize with her.
I'm having hot flashes like someone in menopause roughly every 20-40 minutes, meaning about 50/day. I'll go from being a little chilly in an air-conditioned room to suddenly being overwhelmed by the feeling of needing to jump into the shower with my clothes on. I now totally have one of those cooling gel neck things and a Gilligan hat with cooling gel beads in it. I wet them and I wear them in the house with no shame. Haven't worn them anywhere outside of the house yet, but if this continues, I just might.
I have a new understanding of the concept of breezy resort-wear populat in Floridian retirement villages. At a certain point, you simply DGAF anymore and just want to be cool. I can currently relate.
6. Shedding
Even though I'm cold-capping and saving most of my hair, there's still a constant shedding that's going on. I'm probably at about 80-85% of my original hair, which in the cold-capping world is a massive success. But I leave hair everywhere. I did dishes the other day and there was hair in them. I sit on a chair and leave hair behind. When I brush my hair, I have to do it in a semi-contained area, because it's a shed-a-thon. But fortunately, I've been told my hair looks the same as before to the outside observer (save for these terribly grown-out roots that I’m not allowed to dye for another couple of months), so I'm nothing but grateful for the cold capping. I'd totally have been full-on Telly Savalas by now without the cold capping, so I'm okay with leaving a little hair everywhere.
7. Palpitations
I'm feeling a little more empathy for Fred Sanford these days. Just walking up a few stairs causes my heart to beat like a racehorse. Also, just randomly in the middle of the day for no reason, it's like my heart wakes up thinking that it overslept or something: a sudden panic and then it calms down. I've been taking meds for it, but it's still just weird.
8. Tips & Toes
This is a weird one: the Taxane-based chemotherapies have a known side effect of neuralgia in your fingertips and toes, and as I'm on Taxotere and Cyclophosphamide regimen, I'm getting that as well. It's not all the time, but sometimes I wake up and my fingernails and toenails themselves just feel sore. Then the next day, it feels like my fingertips are asleep: all tingly and numb. It comes and goes, but seems to be hanging around in certain fingers more prominently, like the thumb on my right hand and the middle finger on my left. My nails are also quite brittle, too, and have been breaking. Some people lose their nails during this process, so I'm trying to avoid that; there's quite enough horrorshow stuff going on with me at this point...
I gotta say that I'm super thankful for all the bewb cancer facebook groups I joined early on, as there are thousands of ladies like me who have gone through this crud at an early age and are coping with having symptoms that make us feel so much older. They have awesome tips, like wearing dark/opaque nail polish to shade your nails from the UV rays that make it worse, and using fortifying nail cream before the breakage gets too bad. Thank God for the internet, right?
9. Sleep
Remember sleep? I vaguely do. Right now, I feel like a new parent.
I used to get a decent amount of sleep, except for when I would stay out or binge-watch something until 3am, but now I can't seem to make myself doze off, and when I do, I wake up ten or more times per night. Sometimes it's the hot flashes. Sometimes it's just a feeling of discomfort. Sometimes it’s anxiety. Sometimes, of course, it's the dog not sharing the bed. They've offered sleep meds, but I really don't want to go that route. The last thing I need is sleep-walking right now; I'm enough of a weirdo in my waking life.
10. Puffiness
With the slightest change in atmosphere, I am the puffiest of the puffy. When it's hot out, I now get cankles that last for days. I have trouble bending my fingers sometimes because all of a sudden I am swollen for some reason. I've been told it's not noticeable, but I think those people were being kind. I've taken to occasionally lying upside-down on the bed with my feet & legs on the wall, trying to get everything to de-puff. Someone said it might have been in part due to lymph nodes having been removed. Someone else said it might be the Lupron, which would make sense because the relentless hot flashes have proven that Lupron is the devil, so of course it would also disfigure me. One website said it was part of the chemo and your body not filtering things properly. Whatever it is, I'll be happy to get my ankles back for good.
Wasn't kidding. Straight up horrible cankles caused by running around New York.
So that's my take on Walrus Season. It's a funny time, and I'm handling it all by laughing at it and indulging in physical comfort when I need to, because what else can you do, really?
So until I get back to my normal self, I'm going to embrace my inner walrus...which looks a little but like this: