Two Weeks of Chemo: Day 4

This is part of an ongoing two-week series. For more info, see this introductory post.

Day 4 is the turning point from the "weakend" back to normal life. No, that sounds too dramatic. It's more like the first point of a poorly executed 3-point turn back towards normal life. Any lingering nausea can be overcome at this point. I can brave the world again.

But before my doctor and nurse practitioner had worked with me to conquer the nausea problems, the Monday morning bus ride was a tortuous barrage of smells. People smell. They don't necessarily smell bad, but they do smell. Most of the time our brains tune out any constant inputs, like white noise or background smells, because our brains know they aren't important. However when we have upset stomachs, our brains have learned that smells can be very important. If we can become more attuned to the scents around us, perhaps we won't eat more of that rotten meat or drink more spoiled milk. This is a nifty skill, but unneeded when your nausea is caused by chemo.

Now from an overactive sense to an under-active one. For about the first week of each two-week cycle, my sense of taste is all wrong. At times everything tastes metalic, at others everything is too sweet. More annoying than the taste of food is the taste of nothing. The lingering bitterness of my saliva makes everything sound unappetizing. As this week progresses, food begins to taste good again, but I still have to get past that baseline bad taste in my mouth.

One way I've found to combat it: snack! If my mouth only tastes good while food is in it, then let's keep it that way as long as possible! If there was ever a excuse for eating random junk food, this is it.

Back to Day 3.
Ahead to Day 5.