So How Did My Experiment Turn Out?

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On Monday I announced that this was Experiment Week. Today is Saturday, and Science™ has spoken.

It turns out that I’m kinda sorta OK for about four or five hours in the morning. As long as I rest every hour or so, I can indeed write a couple of light blog posts, take a walk around the block, and shower and shave. That’s the good news.

However, the deadline for my second walk of the day is about 2 pm. On Monday I walked at 5 pm, and when I was done I felt like I’d just run a marathon. It took me all evening to recover. On Tuesday I walked at 4 pm. This time it felt like I’d run a mile, and I recovered in about an hour. Basically, I’ve learned that my body wants to crash at about 2 pm every day. Maybe I doze for a couple of hours, maybe I actually sleep a bit, but either way I’m good for nothing. By 5 pm I’m back up, but all my chemo side effects have started to get worse. The neuropathy is worse, the nausea is worse, and the fatigue is worse. This continues until bedtime, getting steadily worse the entire time.

So that’s that. I have the energy for light activity from about 7 am to 2 pm. Then I collapse, and when I get up I spend the next five or six hours enduring crappy side effects of the chemo. Oh, and this includes a terrible taste in my mouth that never goes away. Ugh.

But it could be worse! In fact, it’s been worse before. Still, it’s frustrating that recovery seems to come so slowly. I don’t know if I’ll be spending another week like this or another couple of months. All I can do is wait and see.