Attack of Pre-Chemo Brain

Twenty-four hours to chemo. Twenty-four hours to chemo. Twenty-four hours to chemo... and cancer is already making me stupid.

I've been warned about "chemo brain" - this is an actual, recognized side effect of chemotherapy treatment - an inability to think, reason or understand (which is essentially what I do for a living... Greeeeaaaaat.) with an added bonus of short term memory problems. So if I'm suddenly an idiot the next time you see me, please understand I really WAS smart and competent once. But now I'm fighting cancer so I get to lose that in addition to my boobs and my hair.

And apparently, I also get to lose sleep. I was exhausted after a long day yesterday and could barely keep my eyes open long enough to make and eat dinner with the family. I announced I was going to bed at 8pm and swore that if I was still awake at 9pm I was taking a drug to knock me out.

Well, around 8:45 the bedtime screaming started. So I went to help get the kids down and give Dave a break. And when Greta was finally asleep and Fin started demanding Daddy instead of Mommy, I was happy to tag out again and get to bed. It was 9:45...

I zonked out no problem and slept just fine. Until 1:45am. Then I was awake until after 5.

Yeah.

I climbed back into bed around 5am and made myself stay there until 7:30, but there was still very little sleep. And the sleep I did get was full of bizarre and very vivid dreams. God built me a loft with a huge ladder, but the ladder broke when I was halfway down and then I had to climb through an obstacle course of home repair debris (apparently in my world, even God doesn't clean up after Himself... sheesh. Do I have to do everything?)

And I dreamed about getting texts from friends with advice on how to get to sleep. The only one I remember was "Snacks!" - which I had already tried around 2am...

So - no real point to this entry today. The mind is going in a million different directions today with no clear purpose. Even when I have a purpose in mind, I can't seem to keep myself on track.

I picked up one of my cancer books this morning to see if there was any info on a concern I'm having with my expanders and ended up trying to read the chapter on the specific chemo drugs. I didn't have the attention span to read a whole paragraph and found myself just flipping through the chapter at random reading pieces here and there and trying to remember exactly which combination of drugs I'll be getting tomorrow (Taxotere and Cytoxin, I believe).

The book listed various side effects and possible ways to address those side effects (Cytoxin can apparently impact the bladder, so I'm supposed to drink an extra 3 glasses of water?) that I hadn't heard before, but I couldn't even formulate the questions to write down to ask tomorrow before we get started. So I ended up just putting bookmarks at each page and hoping my brain is in better shape tomorrow.

Though, honestly, I am already expecting tonight to be much like the night before the first day of school - completely sleepless. So, I suppose I will really welcome the dose of Benadryl that comes with my chemo cocktail in the morning because all I have to do is smell that stuff and I'm asleep.

My brain is mush and I haven't even started chemo yet. Ergh.

Thank you all for bearing with me over the next few months when I'm suddenly forgetful and dumb.

<3
-B-