Most people that know me well know that I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to taking pills. I usually hate taking any type of pain medications, cold medications, etc. It probably stems from a long history of my mom telling me and my brother to just tough it out when we were kids, which isn't a bad thing. But now, during my treatment, it appears that there's a pill to be had for every side effect, and it seriously frustrates me. Especially after being "healthy" for so long. Now it's like my liver and kidneys are under attack, and it's going to take a long time after treatment to try to repair them. I email my doctor with every new side effect to see what can be done, and the answer is usually some form of pill. Diarrhea? Take Imodium. Joint or bone pain? Extra strength Tylenol. Nausea? Compazine and zofran. Neuropathy? Vitamin B6. Heart burn? Zantac or Prilosec. Broke out in a rash? Doxycycline. Can't sleep? I've gone between Norco, Advil PM, Ativan, and now trying Tramadol. In addition, I've also had chest pain which I can't quite figure out what to chalk up to. It's probably a combination of my chest port, stress, and sleep deprivation. And can't forget the random nosebleeds, which I try to prevent by putting Vaseline up my nose. Sigh.
I mostly just hate not feeling like I have control over my own body. What comes out, what goes in, what symptoms I'm feeling and what the cause might be. It's like a big guessing game. More often than not I'm just shooting in the dark, hoping that whatever pill I take gets rid of the side effect. It usually doesn't. Today I'm sitting here with body aches pretty much all over, I'm exhausted from hardly sleeping, and I also threw up water and lucky charms this morning, which has me afraid to eat or drink anything else for the rest of the day. And that happened at 9:15 am.
I know that this is only temporary. That in a few months, hopefully my body will bounce back and I won't have to take so many pills on a daily basis. But for now it makes me angry that my body isn't my own. It's my cancer's. At least for now.
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