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Wednesday, July 11, 2018

DAY 009 -- "Yelling At The Ants"

Today, life was like a long, edgy, grayscale walk in a hospital high-rise parking garage.

I wish I could always grace these entries with sweetness and light, all gushy and yippie, but some days and nights won’t have it. Today was a rough one, with the first big curtain (or wave, or swoop, or a moniker I haven’t settled on yet) of nausea and vomiting making its debut into this treatment mix milieu early this morning.

Ugh-ugh. We should acknowledge up front, now that I’ve dragged you into my reality, that I intentionally forgot to take my prophylactic anti-nausea meds after chemo. I was supposed to do this in the evening and morning after treatment, to ward off the queasy that was anticipated to be coming ‘round right about now. But, I wasn’t feeling sick, so I made it slip my mind.

Ugha-ugha.  I won’t mind-slip like that again.

There are lots of slang ways of saying nausea/vomiting (sorry, but if you’re eating, you should put your utensils down right about here, just for a paragraph or two.). And, because there’s no end to purveyors of the muse, some of them are quite creative. We have the usuals:

Hurl, puke, spew, upchuck, barf, ralph and toss your cookies. Not very clever, but good enough to make the point, and without much ambiguity. We get it right away.

We also find some funny, even witty retching reportage when we’re searching for how to describe our (notice how I’m dragging you into this) GI upsets. Here are a few of my new discoveries. Hey, bear with me, this took a little research, and it did take my mind off my body for a bit. We have:

--- “peristaltic pyrotechnics”: A sure favorite for the nursey-scientists and lovers of alliteration among us.

--- “greet your guts”: Also for the alliterati, but more appealing to the no-frills crowd.

--- “technicolor yawn”: Reaching a bit, but one that lands nicely when you work for the visual and it becomes clear.

--- “paint the town red … and orange and green and pink”: This evokes a real ba-da-barf, ba-da-boom kind of feeling. Cute.

The list is almost endless, and honorable mentions go to “multi-colored organic fountain” and “time to get out the ol’ sawdust bucket” and “looking for aardvarks,” and “doing the hoakey croakey,” but I’ll leave you with my new favorite:

“Yelling at the ants.”

That one is just in time for the summer season, but try not to think of it at your next picnic.

That past me, the rest of the day just drifted by. I must’ve mostly slept through the radiation. I remember the background music, now a welcome staple when I’m in the mold, but whatever it was didn’t get through the fatigue. It was better than silence, but I heard it as Muzak filler, which was just what I needed today, anyway.


My new day’s resolution? Take my medications as ordered. I don’t know why I need to tell myself that, but sometimes, when I think I know better than me what’s best for me, I just don’t listen. I’ll try to shape up ... and keep it down.



More as we go, El 


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