Ok people listen up! I know what you’ve been secretly
thinking all these weeks: Sure, Jennifer talks about the disadvantages of
chemo, but I think it sounds pretty good. Look at her dewy skin, made young
again by the chemical peel that is being paid for by taxpayer dollars! Look at
the way she gets to start again with a whole fresh look for her hairstyle, and
in the meantime gets these two totally different hairstyles (three, if you
count the bald look she wears most often)! Look at the easy weight loss plan
she has adopted and the way the pounds keep melting off!
Well, it’s not real fun and games until someone gets a full body rash. (If this isn't a saying where you're from, it should be.) The new and
improved Round Three side effects are enough to make your (but alas not my)
hair curl.
Late last week I discovered that the eye sensitivity of
Round Two (a minor dry eye problem, hardly even worth talking about) could be
trumped by extra strength Round Three eye sensitivity that kicked me into
migraines whenever I saw light or looked at a computer screen. Now THIS was a
side effect with flair, one worth staying in bed for. After a couple of days of
migraines, I discovered the little look I like to think of as Chemo Retro
Gangsta Mom: Me in a beanie with my sunglasses, humming “I wear my sunglasses
at night…” (come on, all join in!).
But even that might not have been enough to dissuade those
of you who still look on with some envy at my chemo benefits (Migraines are
annoying yes, I can hear you argue, but when is the last time you shaved your
silky smooth legs? And all the money you save on hair products!). Let this new
one be a warning to you. Yesterday I began to break out in the most
astonishingly itchy rash. Today it looks like I was in the horror movie Mutant Mosquitoes at the Nudist Colony. It turns out, I’m having a
secondary reaction to the yew juice. Remember the reaction I had in the hospital
when my chest started to close up in protest for the poison? Well, my skin is
now on the protest march too. Turns out this chemo thing isn’t all fun and
games.
So, kids, don't try this at home. For all the upside,
ultimately chemo is just too itchy to be worth its many beauty benefits. Of
course, if it keeps the cancer away, what’s a little pustule between friends…
PS I was guessing you didn't want a visual representation of the topic today, so I picked one that makes me laugh: the wild turkeys on R and D's farm. Somehow their frantic running reminds me of me and my frantic attempts not to itch.
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