Chemo II

I’m going in this morning for the second round of chemotherapy. It should be an all-day affair. I have my choice of days to do this but they recommend Fridays so I can rest and recover over the weekend.

Three weeks has passed since the first dose. And, almost to the day, most of my hair has fallen out. It’s as if the hair has died and gradually broken off. Today I look like a cancer victim: patches of hair randomly cling on but are slowly surrendering. I’ve never seen my scalp before. It’s kind of shiny and itchy and feels nude.

I’m nervous about this treatment because the first time I felt strong and healthy. Now I am weaker. I’m assuming I’ll feel the cumulative effects of the various toxins later today.

Good news is, after today, I am half way into the four-dose program. Each one will be three weeks apart.

The day before yesterday I got a second echocardiogram. The first one was two weeks ago in the ER because of high blood pressure. But this one was ordered by the oncologist and was more area-specific. They measured the size of my heart, volume of blood flow, strength of the pumps, direction of flow, and so much more. They want to make sure the chemo does not damage one of the aortas so they’ll be tracking all these stats in the coming months.