Then Everything Went to Crap

(I just couldn’t resist some potty humor. I apologize!)

When I last posted about my experience going through treatment for breast cancer, I hinted that my stomach was starting to be an issue. As I said, we were going into a lot of celebratory events and I was pretty much in a pattern of knowing when I needed to be, shall we say, close to home.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about bathroom issues for an entire post. Some of you do know who I am after all. Let me just say it was bad. Like beyond anything. Ever. And I had to google things. And people actually post pictures of those things on the internet. And doctors respond to them. It was a very educational experience. In what NOT to post on the internet and how strange people are that they would! Ick!!!

These sorts of issues made it difficult to be left alone with my girls. There was one family holiday event That Guy went to without me and my parents stayed here with me. That was one of the worst days of this issue and I still cannot believe he went and left me here. I don’t think he could fully fathom how bad it was since he was often at work.

Things that I found helpful during this time was an all natural ginger ale. And McDonald’s French Fries. Because I live in Oppositeland. I have no idea why, but my nurse would tell me to not eat anything and then slowly try pretzels, crackers, and so forth. It would just keep going. Or rather I would. Then I would reach this point where I knew what I had to do and That Guy would go to McDonald’s and then I would eat them and I would be fine. Because Oppositeland. I would be on the phone to my nurse and telling her what was going on and she would tell me all the typical things and then I would mention what worked and she would strongly suggest against it.

You might ask yourself where this random solution came from. I think it started sometime in college when a fountain diet coke and fries was the perfect hangover cure the next morning. It has helped me through rough mornings, been used as a preventative measure after a fun night, been the first thing I could stomach after a stomach bug, and so it seemed like an obvious thing to try. During a time I was trying to make lifestyle changes I went back to the tried and true. And it worked. And when this is going on for days or weeks at a time, you kind of have to bend the rules. And it continued on and off for a total for about seven weeks. Even after chemo ended. By that point, someone mentioned it may not be so much the chemotherapy medications as an imbalance so a probiotic was our next step.

So I may have been the only person to get through the holidays without gaining weight. And the only birthday girl to try to skip her own birthday cake two years in a row (“morning” sickness and chemotherapy). The thai food for birthday dinner was not the best plan either when thinking about the end game of that evening.

There were a lot of other things going on as well during this time. I had a relatively smooth experience and I am thankful that this was the drama for me. It provided some humor then and is definitely funnier looking back at it now. I mean how many friends can you text about these sorts of thing. I am lucky to have them. They may not feel so lucky to have me after getting a brutally honest text, but somedays you just need to tell it like it is.