Hump Day!

I can’t remember the day-to-day routine of work anymore (perhaps I’ve blocked it out) or what I felt when I was a kid in elementary school, but Wednesdays were always “Hump Day.”  Well, Wednesday, December 2nd is the biggest hump day ever for me.  I can’t imagine it will ever be eclipsed.  Wednesday — that’s right Wednesday — is my treatment’s Hump Day.  The second half has a longer, more violent tail, but Wednesday is Hump Day nonetheless.  Four of the six chemos done, and seventeen of the thirty-three radiation treatments are in the bag. Every day, a day closer to being done, this cancer dead.  And every day, a day closer to regular, although altered, life.  HUMP DAY!!! 

Monday:  Radiation was easy, on the other side of the line, as was chemo.  The stress of radiation has dissipated, making the process close to stress free. It’s really not fun, or comfortable, but at least my tension is mostly gone.

However, my neck is really red and uncomfortable.  Unlike real life when you have sunburn and you simply wouldn’t go out, my skin gets burnt again and again.  The eating issues come and go, and I always have super dry mouth.  My taste buds are gone for a while. 

(This is Suzy – I’m getting Steve some wife-beater undershirts to wear around the house so nothing touches his burned neck. When he said he’d be cold, I said we’d just turn up the heat. I had already ordered him a heated blanket. Not much I can do for the taste buds and some of the other side effects. If you know me, you know how much I like planning and having an answer for everything! It’s hard when we run into something I can’t fix.) 

Back to Steve now —
One of the odd things is my beard.  The radiation has made parts of it fall out in chunks. I’m not sure if I’ll lose more, and hopefully it’s just temporary. The scrubbiness is covered by my mask which I wear throughout my treatments, so why do I care?  I guess because when I see myself in the mirror, I can see the physical changes cancer has wrought on me.  If more falls out, I might have to shave for the first time in 40 years.   December 18th is our 38th anniversary, and Suzy has never seen me clean shaven.  We are really testing our vows. 

Tuesday:  Hope this doesn’t pass over the “too graphic” line (be forewarned). For the past week, I have been a mucus making machine.  I use the better part of a small box of tissues each day, plus every sink I pass by.  Each time I spit, I imagine dead cancer cells going down the drain or into the trash.  Gross, I know, but such is my life.

Wednesday:  It’s here, it’s Hump Day!   A day I was truly thinking would be special.  And it is, but the fact is, I’m struggling today.  Struggling with the discomfort, struggling with the daily grind, struggling with loss of my health, struggling with getting my arms around all I this.

But hey, it’s Hump Day!