Chemo Day 3

Today was the day that the doctors told me that I would start to feel the effects of the chemo. Now I've had my fair share of the flu and I also had those two mystery fevers that I thought were the result of some bad Dairy Queen, but I've never felt like this. Toward the end of my chemo today I was feeling rougher that I'd ever felt in my life. Just when I thought that I was turning the corner, the nausea hit. Now, I wish I could put into words how bad this nausea was, but I lack the literary ability to do it justice. The nurse asked if I needed some Gravol, and I happily accepted thinking that I would be back to feeling like my old self in no time.

Now, for those of you who have taken Gravol before, you should be familiar with how drowsy it makes you. At first you start to feel a little sleepy, and as time goes on you more than likely will be heading to bed. Keep in mind this is with the pill form. I got to experience these effects in super fast-forward since mine came in IV form. Imagine if you will all the effects of Gravol kicking in within 30 seconds. I'm not entirely aware of how I ended up in bed when Caity came to pick me up an hour later, but it was the only place I wanted to be on the car ride home. Every time we braked, accelerated, turned, changed lanes, my brain responded like my neurons were the snow in a snow globe. I think it's a sure sign that you're really sick when all you can think of on the car ride home from the hospital is how badly you want to go back to the hospital.

My counts fell for the first time since we started this interesting adventure. I didn't remember to bring the numbers home today, but everything is falling at the right rates. I was able to completely forget the name of my doctor. I was told that the attending physician's name was Dr Gigi, so when a doctor walked in 5 minutes later, I happily chirped "How's it going Dr Gigi?"

"I'm Dr Savois. I spent two hours with you a month ago remember? I was the one who talked you into this"

Oops. Oh well, I've got several drugs I can blame that one on. I did however find out the main difference between Dr Gigi and Dr Savois. Dr Savois was kind enough to point out that unlike herself, Dr Gigi was 6 feet tall, male and African-American. I really hope doctors don't hold grudges.

I must confess that I don't want to be writing today. It's taken me an hour to get this far and I'm having trouble keeping a reasonable flow to this entry. The two things keeping me going are my insatiable need to entertain the masses and my desire to read a complete set of entries when I'm old and gray. It's like when I would drive down to Okotoks at 4 in the morning every day to work out with Bruce Grieg, a world record holding powerlifter. It was hell every single time, but the efforts were worth it. Actually, that's a good topic for today so here we go.

Powerlifting for me was a way to prove that I was a normal human being. After training with Bruce for four months my max lifts were as follows.

Squat 595 pounds

Bench Press 315 pounds

Deadlift 450 pounds

Now I'm pretty proud of those numbers. I enjoyed the fact that I could lift more weight than most healthy individuals. I also enjoyed the fact that no one at the gym knew that I had cancer. I was pushed just as hard as a healthy person and I was able to keep the pace. In April, I had to choose school over working out to prepare for my new job, but I could have had a good shot at the medals in the Canadian National Powerlifting Competition if I had kept training. In fact, that is my first goal I want to attain when I am better. It also happens to be the thing that drives me to get through this.

I WILL BE WEARING A GOLD MEDAL FOR POWERLIFTING IN TWO YEARS.

God help anyone who dares to stand in my way.