Warning Labels

As you can imagine, the doctors fob this job off on the nurses warn you of a thousand different side effects you may or may not experience from the particular chemo agent you’ll be taking. They run through so many potential ailments, stressing that they’re rare and probably won’t happen to you anyway, that you leave the consult room thinking, “Uh, okay, I might get diarrhea, or I might not, that’s the takeaway here.” There’s an hour wasted.

I wish someone had given me some more practical advice about life when I could have used it the kinky quirks and quirky kinks you get from taking these toxic chemicals. But maybe my loss can be your gain. I’ll share with you some of the side effects that I’ve noticed in the months that my veins have been sipping down Fluorouracil, Irinotecan, Oxaliplatin, and Xeloda. As always, this advice is worth exactly what you paid for it; your copay here is only $2,000.

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Your skin may exude oils invisible to the naked eye, but tangible enough to ensure that the first time you pick up anything with a surface smoother than sandpaper, you will drop it.

Your neurons may fire more slowly, causing your hands to keep strumming the G chord long after your brain has sent a message that the sheet music is calling for a D.

Your attention span may

Your hearing may be impaired just enough to ensure that you have to get out of your chair and go into the next room to make sure you got that right.

Your mind may forget whatever was said in that room in one to two minutes.

Your ability to concentrate may be

Your short-term memory may become so short that you find it difficult to keep track of the cheap jokes you make while blogging; you may repeat yourself.

Your sense of direction may be sufficiently impaired to require the use of your GPS to make it home from the infusion suite.

Your mouth may become just a bit sensitive to cold liquids; drinking them during your treatment cycle may feel like having dental work performed without Novocaine. You may wish to keep the iced latte on hold for now, unless you actually enjoy doing a spit take at the local Starbucks.

Your short-term memory may become so short that you find it difficult to keep track of the cheap jokes you make while blogging; you may repeat yourself.

Your feet may elongate sufficiently to make the act of changing trousers and boxers more of an adventure to you, and more of a potential source of humor to passersby wondering whether you’re bringing back the pogo.

You may experience confusion as you wonder how you can still be wearing the same size shoes if your feet are too big to fit through your regular pant leg. Your memory loss will take care of this problem for you.

Your cognitive functions will be too impaired for you to think of an ending for this one.

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