Chemo Diaries - Round 1

One down, five to go.

As I'm typing this, it's the night before my next chemo treatment. AKA the last day of round 1. I started this round super scared and not really sure what was going to happen. And I really couldn't find a resource that could explain to me, week by week, what to expect. I'm going to try my best for you below.

Week One
The first night and the following day weren't too bad for me. I did have some pretty bad stomach issues (read: diarrhea... sorry, keeping it real) which made it hard for me to sleep through the first night. However, I was feeling pretty good and kept my appetite up until the 2nd day. Days 2-5 were the worst for me. On top of continuing stomach issues, I completely lost my appetite and had terrible nausea starting day 5. Starting day 3, the absolute exhaustion kicked it. I cannot believe how tired I was! I truly thought I would never be able to wake up. I slept over 13 hours the night between day 2-3 and struggled to stay awake even sitting up throughout the day. I also experienced searing shooting pain and muscle spasms down my right neck. This is the side of my body that the cancer is on, so I was told that this, unfortunately, isn't too uncommon.

Week Two
Exactly one week after round 1 began, I started feeling better over night. I went back to my first SoulCycle class (with my girl Allison in Coral Gables, below!) and felt my appetite coming back too. I was even able to spend a Saturday hanging out with my friends outside of my apartment and went to the FSU alumni bar in Brickell to watch my Noles play. My fatigue got a lot better over the course of this week as well.

Week Three
This week rocked. I truly felt like a rockstar and back to my normal self. Both my appetite and energy levels went back up to normal and I was able to continue working out. Bad news: I started noticing my hair falling out in little clumps. It wasn't too bad but scary enough to convince me to make the appointment to cut my hair short.

Week Four
I felt ALLLL the emotions this week. I cried, or at least teared up, every day this week. It's been a lot more of an emotional journey than I expected. Some of this might be due to my medications (I was told I could expect mood swings) but I think a lot of the sadness is from seeing my hair coming out a lot. Like, a lot a lot. After seeing my hair coming out in large clumps, I decided to head in to my salon for, what I thought, would be a chop of a few inches. However, it became pretty evident after washing it that we'd have to cut it short. Feeling all of my hair just getting chopped off was extremely emotional. I'm not even going to act tough here- I was crying like a baby. I'm learning to rock this new short 'do but I've also lucked out and gotten a few amazing wigs! Stay tuned for a post all about hair and wiggin' out.

That's it for now. See ya tomorrow round 2!