Don't Forget to Bring a Towel

There is one cool thing about chemotherapy: you get to witness your body being beat down by a foreign substance and then build itself back up again stronger and more durable than before.

However, there is this other, very uncool thing that people savvy to oncology talk call "chemo brain." Not knowing anyone who has gone through chemotherapy, I was not fully aware of the condition and was not at all prepared for it when I began experiencing it first hand.

These two things occur simultaneously, the effects of each increasing with every treatment so that as the body becomes stronger, so does the "chemo brain."

As I have mentioned before, and as I am sure you already knew, chemotherapy attacks all cells equally -- it does not target cancer cells specifically. The effects of this are especially evident in the nausea and vomiting effect of chemo where the cells of the stomach lining are being maimed. But chemotherapy also attacks that essential organ wrapped up and stored on your shoulders.

I am convinced that I am going to have permanent brain damage.

Here's a brief summary of the first two months of treatments I just completed:

The first treatment left my body in a poisoned haze of rebellion and discontentment; "why would you do that to me?" it seemed to scream, and tried to teach me a lesson by refusing to walk in straight lines, digest food properly and allow me to complete normal daily activities like washing dishes. I was weak and my body was dizzy all the way up to my next treatment. I could hardly even hold my niece, which made me feel terrible.

The second treatment irritated my stomach more and chased my hair away, and the poison seemed to be storing itself in my tissues for a more malicious attack down the road, but my body seemed to be thinking something to the effect of, "Alright, fine, you wanna see what I'm made of? Bring it on!" I felt better for the two days before my next treatment, which was nice, although it kind of just pissed me off.

The third treatment had me stumbling out of the Cancer and Blood Disease Center like a drunk out of a bar at closing time, and I really thought I was going to lose it on the way home. I wanted to go bury myself somewhere until it was over, but I couldn't even sleep through it. My equilibrium was dislocated temporarily and I had this tendency to walk into things... things like walls... but my body seemed to be adjusting to the large doses of poison being administered to me bi-weekly and I not only recovered from the treatment pretty quickly, but I felt rather good.
My memory seemed to be affected, though; I couldn't remember appointments and my word recall was noticeably diminished.

The fourth treatment made me sick at the center, despite my hard core nausea pills (there are three of them in a pack, one for the day of, one for the next day, and one for the second day after treatment and they are sold at a hefty $354/pack). I had to get additional nausea medication, administered intravenously for maximum effect, before they would continue my treatment. For the rest of that day and the next day I could barely stand, never mind walk all the way to the door to let the dog out. I have never felt so helpless and pathetic; I seriously don't think I would have been able to stand up and wash a dish to save my life.

However, my body is amazing. It was learning how to deal with the chemo extremely well and while I was indeed knocked completely off my feet for a few days, I recovered even quicker than I did from my third treatment and I almost feel normal. You probably have no idea how amazing you actually feel right now because the way you feel is normal for you, but please believe me when I tell you that chemotherapy gives you a whole new appreciation for feeling healthy, and when it occurred to me that I ought to go for a brisk walk I almost leaped out of my skin for joy that I felt good enough to want to exercise.

Unfortunately, though, my brain malfunctions have worsened. Not only can I not remember things and recall words from my vocabulary, but my ability to listen and pay attention are at an all time low.

First of all, I cannot remember my short term memory. "Hello Jim. My name is Joey. It's nice to meet you. What did you say your name was again?" It is really quite annoying, especially for grocery shopping.

What bothers me more, however, is my inability to recall things that I know I know, like words. You know how sometimes you'll try to think of a word but you temporarily forget it? It's right there, hiding around a corner that you can almost see around, but you're at just the wrong angle to get a glimpse? Well "chemo brain" is nothing like that. The word isn't hiding anywhere - it's simply not there. It's not on the tip of your tongue and you have no hope that you're going to remember the word you wanted to use - all you know is that you used to know a word that conveyed the thing you're trying to communicate, but you can't even remember what letter that word used to start with. There are no walls or corners or shadows, there is only a vast expanse of very well lit white where your diverse landscape used to exist, showcasing how thoroughly you're being cleansed.

While that alone makes me feel stupid when talking to people, my inability to keep a train of thought and to pay attention to what people are saying to me makes me want to avoid social situations all together. I'll be in the middle of a conversation with someone and they'll be talking to me and I will just stop registering what they're saying and zone out, and my internal monologue is going "Hey! Joey! Listen! Pay attention! What are you doing? It's not that hard, just listen, damnit, LISTEN!" I try to force myself to focus on what the person is saying, and I'm looking at them the whole time but I cannot decipher what words they are using; all my brain registers is a kind of humming buzz. As I start to zone back in it's like coming up out of a swimming pool and all of those muffled, jumbled sounds become discernible utterances.

By this point, however, I have completely forgotten what we were talking about in the first place, and when the person looks back at me waiting for a response, my only viable course of action is to admit that I have no idea what's going on.