The Roller Coaster

Good Afternoon,

I have not posted in a little while and thought I would offer some insight as to why. Last week was the tough week of my treatment. It happens every cycle so you would think by now that I would be a pro at dealing with it but each cycle it hits me just as hard. Truthfully each cycle it gets worse.

The cycles themselves are I liken to a roller coaster. In the first 5 days you are injected with the chemotherapy drugs and take very high doses of steroid. In the first 5 days there isn't very much side effects, so I am not sure whether it is just the chemo takes sometime to do its damage or whether the steroids are propping me up. I am sure it is more a combination of the two. The first five days are like climbing that first big hill of a rollercoaster. Each day you get closer to the point where you are going to plummet back to the earth. My final dose of steriod is Monday morning and so by the evening you start to feel the effects slowly. After that you crash pretty hard until about Friday or Saturday where you start to feel better. I am not going to get much into the exact symptoms because even those change but needless to say when I am going through that part of the cycle I don't really want to do much. So if anyone was wondering why you haven't heard from me in a bit that is the reason.

There were some positives out of the cycle. Last Thursday I got out for a rollerblade. That is one of the first times I have gotten out for some physical activity in my down week. I am hoping to increase that to some sort of activity each day regardless of where I am in my cycle. I think it will take some mental battling to do it but I am confident that by the end of all this I will achieve it.

When I say each cycle it gets worse, it is not physically the symptoms are getting worse. It is more mentally. The tuesday and wednesday are usually the bottom for me in which I am at my weakest point mentally for the process. After that everything usually starts to slowly get better until you get to the week we are in now. From this point until I start my next cycle I usually feel much better and have normal energy levels.

Well hope that gives some insight into what I go through when things are rough.

Aaron