Anyone get the license plate on that thing?

Previously, on LOST GITGAW, we witnessed the thrilling adventures of the chemotherapy infusion suite, if by thrilling we mean anticlimactic and mundane. To recap, I tried to buy a snack and later enjoyed a sandwich. Yeah. That’s the kind of real-life drama you just don’t get on every other blog on the planet. Mmm mmm. And it was brought to you in gripping, real-time, “live blogging” style, if you ignore the fact that it wasn’t written live or in real time. Whether it gripped anything, I dare not say.

The good news was that some drama finally happened after I left the cancer center. The bad news was that the good news was bad and briefly made me wish for death. These good-news dramatics left me so weak that I never had a chance to document the bad news on the Internets.* The worse news is, now that I’m back on my feet, lying down with the laptop, ready to make the world sit up and take notice of last Tuesday’s shockers — I can’t remember anything that happened. Why do you, why do you think they call it chemo fog?

Let me see if I can piece together what happened using e-mails, phone records, and carbon-dating the carpet stains. I came home from the cancer center around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, relieved that it was over and pleased with myself for tolerating the Oxaliplatin so easily. At about, oh, 1:31 p.m., as I explained in an e-mail to a friend,

Ohhhhhh it was vile. By the end it felt like my stomach was trying to digest a gallon of battery acid, maybe propane. Everywhere was hot and bothered, not in a good way. Appetite? Gone. Anticipatory nausea? Back for another stay. And I got a refresher course on how Oxy makes your mouth feel “sensitive,” meaning that if you take a swig of iced tea it feels like you’re trying to swallow some Lego pieces that have been in the freezer. A freezer in the basement of the Lawrence Livermore Labs maybe.

It seemed my pride at wrestling with the Platinum Ox had goneth before a fall. I crowed, inwardly, and then ate crow. To milk this e-mail just a bit further,

I had six months of that beast in 2006 and it was murder at the time — I would be flattened for two days solid after each treatment. Yesterday I was thinking “Well gee, I know what to expect this time — should be no problem!” Which is kind of like saying “I’ve been shot in the abdomen with a .38 before, I’m ready for the next time it happens, what’s the fuss?”

What could help our hero out of this predicament? Why, Oxaliplatin’s wingman Xeloda of course! After a dinner of who-can-remember with a side of all these moments will be lost in time, I took the prescribed 450 mg of m-m-m-my Xeloda. Then I lay down in bed and talked to my wife for 27 seconds before gently lapsing into a four-hour restorative nap. Thank you, Xeloda — you knocked my ass out, just when I needed it most.

Then again, three days later, the Xeloda had me vomiting up burgers and bagels, kicking my ass over into the land of the liquid diet. My better half rushed out and bought me some juice, some Boost, and something by Peter Coop. Sippin’ that gelatin and juice over the weekend, lying in bed, not a lot to say, felt almost like being back in the hospital, only with better Internet access.

And a cuter nurse.

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*How long does it take for a meme to turn into a cliche? Four and a half years maybe? Rut roh.
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