An improvised life

I’d been thinking my next blog post would include some kind of derisive commentary about “chemo brain,” a term I’ve run across on cancer discussion boards and some of the cancer literature, where it is sometimes listed amidst the A-to-Z compendium of misery called chemotherapy side effects.   Here’s what the Cancer Alliance for Research, Education and Survivorship says (it's one of those gimmicky acronyms, so naturally I discount their literature): The phrase “chemo brain” has come to be used by cancer survivors to describe changes in memory, attention, concentration, and abilities to perform various mental tasks that are associated with receiving chemotherapy treatments for cance r. [i]     I take roughly the same view of chemo brain that I take of “pregnancy brain,” “widow brain,” and all the other excuses humans devise for our failings. With that caveat, I may invoke it  to explain my particular failing for today. But first, some context. I had my last adriamyci

Apparently I was overly cocky last week--this week I have not run once! There seems to be a bit of a pattern to this chemotherapy, where week one is kind of low, and week two is a rebound week. Like parenting and other things I have experienced, cancer is yet another lesson in letting go. Knowing that these poisons are circulating in my body is a little discomfiting for someone whose normal drug intake averages 1 Advil annually. I've always been kind of a control freak about drugs and alcohol--everything from antibiotics to wine to pot to cigarettes. I even limit my coffee intake. I am just innately, almost prudishly, averse to things that take away my sense of control over my body. There are strange and subtle ways the chemotherapy makes itself known--a slight metallic taste, pinkish pee, lethargy, a sense of inner imbalance. A friend warned me that her mother didn't drink enough and has permanent numbness in her toes because the chemo pooled in her extremities. Don't