Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Don't Plan While on Paclitaxel (OR: It's Sleeping Zombie Day)

I brought a stack of student essays to read and grade as the nurse adjusted the IV line and set up the Paclitaxel drip. And that other little plastic package, the anti-allergenic. Surely the third time would be easier than the second time, the second time having been less easy than the first. I'd even been back to take a ballet class in between chemo treatments. Toward the end of a treatment I feel almost normal, just in time for the upcoming dose to render me Sleeping Zombie.
But my eyelids got heavier and out I conked, as if someone had just clocked me. I didn't see stars and nothing hurt, but I drifted into oblivion. So much so that when the nurse came in and I was vaguely staring around, not quite there, I jumped when she asked a question. 
As soon as I got home I was determined to do laundry. I got it in the machine, put in the laundry soap, closed the door--and forgot, as I was to discover only several hours later, than I hadn't started the machine. 
Upstairs I went to lie down on the couch for "just a minute." When my teenager asked if I minded whether he did his clarinet practice I said "Okay," or "go ahead," and apparently went right back to sleep.
"You slept through my clarinet practice, Mom," he said. "Wow. I was really loud, too."
Here I am, five hours later, still a little on the groggy side. Queen of the Zombies. 

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